


from my rotting body, flowers shall grow (and i am in them and that is eternity)

by majesdane



Category: Saw (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-22
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 09:15:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 49,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majesdane/pseuds/majesdane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a story of immortality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for NaNoWriMo 2010. The style of the fic and a few minor character names are borrowed from Stephen King's Carrie -- with love and admiration, of course. The idea for this story could be summed up as one random thought of, 'What would it be like if the events of Saw were real?'
> 
> This story contains a good deal of triggering subjects: discussion and acts of child abuse, self-injury, depression, suicidal thoughts, general violence and mild gore, as well as discussion and blaming of mental illness. Given Amanda's canon backstory, these subjects are unavoidable, but my attempt was to treat them with respect.
> 
> Almost all canon established after Saw III has been ignored.

 

and i looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that  
sat on him was death, and hell followed with him.

\-- revelation 6:8

 

 

 

From _Jigsaw: Piecing Together the Life and Times of America's Most Notorious Serial Killer,_ by John Thompson (Doubleday  & Co Press: 2009), p. 5:

 

> By all accounts and records, it was a fairly uneventful and pleasant day when Amanda Young, the first of John Kramer's test subjects to survive, was drugged, kidnapped, and then forced to play out a game that resulted in the death of a man named Donnie Greco, a notorious local drug dealer. Although her story of survival has been recounted time and time again, it is important to note just how significant this moment in time was; it was, after all, Young's first real taste of blood and, in fact, death, and it was such an event that would set in motion a great many more things to come.
> 
> What Amanda Young was thinking during the events subsequent to her survival to when Kramer approached her to become an "apprentice," is something we can only speculate. We do know that she believed Kramer had, in his own twisted way, "helped" her, which was most likely the strongest force behind her desire to become a larger part of his master plan; a horrific "thank you" of sorts. But the more important questions go unanswered . . .

 

\- -

 

Her first real memory is learning to ride a tricycle, awkwardly pedaling around the driveway, wobbling despite the three wheels. She's three or four at the time and her mother is sitting on the steps of the front porch, tying her hair back with an elastic band and telling her _yes, keep going, push down and forward with your feet, see, there's a good girl, now you've got it_. Her dad isn't around; she doesn't know where he is, but his truck isn't parked in the driveway, so maybe he's just at work. Or out somewhere.

It's a warm afternoon in May. She can feel the heat of the sun shining down on and her hands beginning to get a bit sore; she's been gripping the tricycle's handlebars so tightly for fear of falling off. She's not that far off the ground, she knows, but it's the _fear_ of falling that worries her the most.

Her second memory -- or rather, just the one she can remember most clearly -- is from a year or so later. She's in the living room with her coloring book and half a box of crayons (most of which are broken or worn down to only stubs), when she hears the sound of her mother and father arguing from the kitchen. She can't explain it then, the strange feeling that settles over her, though later, when she's older, she'll be able to place it: dread.

She can't quite hear what they're saying, but she knows her dad is yelling at her mom about something; she doesn't like it at all when her dad yells. It scares her, for reasons she can't quite articulate. Her father's yelling something and her mother is yelling something back, but it's a subdued sort of yelling. As if it's only being done out of pretense; as if there's no real meaning behind it at all.

And then it comes: the sound of a slap. It's hard, sharp; the sound seems like it reverberates throughout the entire house, echoing one, twice. The sudden, heavy silence that comes after it seems even louder; she balls her hands up into fists, nails digging into her palms. She's angry, but she doesn't know why -- seconds later the feeling dissolves away at the sound someone crying. A woman. Her mother.

It's soft. Helpless. A slightly louder sob is punctuated by the sound of the front door slamming.

 

 

\- -

 

From _The Adverse Psychological Effects on Abused Children in Relation to Serial Murderers_ ( _The International Journal of Child Abuse & Neglect_, May 12, 2007) by Richard Wilkens and Samantha Turner:

 

> . . . indeed, it appears as though Young's childhood was not all that unlike the childhoods of most serial killers. Her father was an alcoholic and frequently unemployed and took his anger out on his wife. Several times police were called out to the Young house to deal with domestic disturbances, but, as is typical, Mrs. Young never pressed charges against her husband. Though it is now known that Mr. Young abused his daughter as well as his wife, for many years it went un-reported and was treated as mere speculation . As detailed in a book by Robert Brown titled _The Makings of a Serial Killer_ , people who knew Amanda growing up said that as a young child she was quite happy and outgoing, but as she grew older she also grew more sullen and quiet, preferring to only be by herself.
> 
> Also, as mentioned in Brown's book, several former teachers made comment to the fact that Amanda did not like to be touched and would flinch if anyone came too close to her. She also seemed to have an overwhelming fear of the dark; as recounted by a family friend, Susan Keller, who frequently baby-sat for the Youngs and paraphrased by Brown: at night she would refuse to come out of her room if it was dark, not even to use the bathroom, and insisted on sleeping with her bedroom light, on something that Amanda's parents, especially Thomas Young, did not approve of or allow her to do.
> 
> In fact, due to her crippling fear of the dark, Young was a persistent bed-wetter up until the age of approximately ten years old, a facet of her life which unsurprisingly fills in one of the requirements for the so-called "serial killer trifecta." However, there is no known record of Amanda Young ever being interested in fire-starting or torturing animals.
> 
> All accounts actually state that Amanda's feelings towards animal deaths were quite normal. She always seemed to be quite deeply affected by the deaths of animals around her, such as the accidental killing of the family dog when she was nine years old which occurred when her father was backing his truck out of the driveway . . .

 

\- -

 

She wanted a cat, first, but her mother shot down that suggestion right away as she was allergic to cats.

Her mother wasn't allergic to dogs though, apparently, so that was Amanda's second suggestion, coming only a moment after the initial rejection, and she was pleased when her mom nodded her head and agreed that, yes, all right, she could get one. Three days later they were at the pound and Amanda was kneeling in front of the cage of a dog, a white dog with a patch of brown spots on his right side of his face and ear. He was a mutt, the vet told her mother, rattling off a list of his previous owners and vaccinations, but Amanda was only half-listening, more interested in scratching behind his ear while the dog tried to lick her wrist.

"What are you going to call him?" her mother asked, when they were back in the door, the dog lying down dutifully in the backseat. Whenever Amanda turned to look at him, he was always staring up at the front seat with wide, brown eyes. She wondered what he was thinking of, if anything. She wondered if he knew that he was being taken to a new home; reaching back, she patted him twice on the head; he licked her fingers.

Amanda giggled. "Max, I think," she said.

Her mom made a small sound that Amanda took to mean agreement. "Why Max?"

"It just sounds nice," Amanda said, truthfully. "Don't you think? It's a nice dog name. And he looks like a Max, doesn't he?" her hand once more snaked its way into the backseat. "Do you think Dad will like him?"

"Maybe," her mother said, in a distracted tone. "I don't . . . "

She trailed off and Amanda pulled her hand back, knitting her fingers together and resting her hands in her lap. Glancing up at her mother, Amanda expected her to continue, but her mother just kept driving, not even slowing down as they passed through a yellow-turning-red light.

There was a tear in the fabric of the seat cushion. Amanda picked at it absently and wished they were home already.

Her father hadn't been home these past few days. When Amanda had asked her mother about it, yesterday over breakfast, she'd found out that her dad had been away working. She asked what he'd been doing, but her mom just set her lips into a thin, hard line and then told Amanda to go take the sheets off her bed before she went to school, so they could be thrown into the laundry.

Amanda hated school.

It wasn't so much the actual work that she disliked, but she didn't like being away from home. Everyone seemed to have friends but her, it seemed. She knew everyone at school, certainly, and no one was particularly unpleasant to her, but when she left school in the afternoon no one ever offered to walk home with her. (Even though she knew for a fact that four kids in her class lived either on her road or the next road over.) Sticking her hands into her pockets, she'd watch as other kids walked in pairs or groups, laughing and talking.

She wondered what that would be like. She'd be asked what she thought of that morning's spelling quiz or if she'd started on the homework they had been assigned for next week or if she'd heard about what happened to someone during lunch or recess. Amanda imagined herself acting just like the other kids she saw, imagined telling people about the movie she went to see over the weekend, Max, the new book she was reading, asking them if they wanted to come over and play later.

Once Tracey Parker walked to school with her, for two and a half blocks, and she'd talked the whole time; Amanda just kept stride alongside her, listening politely but not really paying attention. It hadn't seemed to matter to Tracey whether Amanda participated in the conversation or not, just that she was there.

It hadn't happened again, Tracey offering to walk with her.

But sometimes, Amanda wished that it had. Or would. At least when she was walking with Tracey, for however short a time it may have been, it felt like she was normal. She had thought, Well, this is what everyone else does, and had felt a surge of relief at that fact, as if she'd just accomplished something very important indeed.

Amanda's mother never asked why she never had friends over.

It was probably for the best; Amanda wouldn't have been able to explain it even if she'd wanted to.

 

 

\- -

 

If she had to pick a time when she realized that something wasn't quite right, that her parents weren't exactly like the parents that everyone else seemed to have or the ones that she saw on television, when her father let her watch it, she would probably pick that memory of her dad slapping her mom in the kitchen. Except, she hadn't quite gotten it, not right then, even if her mom had come into the living room with a bright red mark on her cheek and tears in her eyes.

"Go outside, Mandy," her mother had said and hadn't even told her to pick up her crayons and put them away like she was supposed to.

She'd known then that something was wrong, but she hadn't really _known_ , not until a couple of weeks later, when she woke up to the sound of something being slammed against something else. It was a hard, awkward sound, like a sharp clapping of hands, and she sat up in bed, blinking and staring out into the darkness with bleary eyes. It was only after a few minutes of sleepy confusion that she recognized the sound of voices -- her dad's, loud and rough and angry, her mom's, strained and high.

Amanda heard her name being said, but that was the only word she could make out; the rest was muffled.

And then it -- the _sound_ \-- happened again.

She'd been anxious to find out what was going on, but she hadn't been able to move. It felt as if she were simply rooted to the bed, her waist and legs pinned down to the mattress. There was a small sliver of light eeking out from beneath the bottom of her door and she wished fervently that it was enough to light up the room; her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but it was still all murky blackness and blurry shapes. Her closet door loomed off to the side, hulking in a corner -- why hadn't she remembered to close it?

She shifted in bed, pulling the covers in tight around her, unable to take her eyes off the slightly open door as her own bedroom door burst open, her dad surrounded by light from the kitchen. Like a glowing ring of fire Amanda thought suddenly, and shut her eyes tight, hoping he hadn't seen she was awake.

"Amanda." Her father's speech sounded strange. Slurred. "Amanda, get the fuck up," he said again, in a louder voice, taking a step into her room and flicking the light on. Amanda flinched, eyes burning from the sudden intrusion of brightness. "I know you're awake."

"Thomas," her mother said, from the other room, in a soft, almost weary voice. "Thomas, leave her alone."

Her father didn't even turn, just snapped a _shut up!_. Amanda could feel his eyes on her, could hear the creaking of the floorboards as he came closer to her bed. She didn't dare open her eyes, though she knew he was standing just above her, staring down. Her lungs burned from holding her breath. It felt as if time had almost stopped entirely.

And then her father reached down, grasping her arm through the blankets, dragging her out of bed. Amanda struggled against him haphazardly, not really understanding what was happening but also knowing that it wasn't something good. She opened her eyes as her bare feet hit the cold wooden floor of the hallway where her mom was staring, hugging herself, one eye an ugly purple-red color and already swelling shut.

Amanda wanted to ask what had happened, but her father yanked her along to the kitchen, pausing in front of the cellar door and roughly pulling it open. "Get down there," he ordered, pushing her in the direction of the cellar steps.

"What?" Amanda balked, staring down at the dark abyss that was the basement. She couldn't see past the third step and her mind raced with horrible possibilities of what could be down there, lurking in the dark. She'd only been down to the basement a handful of times -- as far as she could remember, anyway -- and it had always been with her mom, during the daytime, and only for a few moments to help with the laundry.

"Thomas," her mother said, from the hallway. "Tom, don't. You know how she is. She doesn't -- she's afraid of the dark. Just leave her be, all right?"

"'S'fucking _not_ all right." Her father tightened his grip on her arm, flicking on the cellar light and pulling her down the steps. "She won't fucking hear us down here, will she? Worried so goddamn much about what she might think, she could learn a few fucking things from you, Sarah, learn not to be such a motherfucking no good -- "

 

 

\- -

 

From _Jigsaw_ , p 103:

 

> . . . at least half a dozen police reports between 1981-82 that detail the sort of familiar abuse that Thomas Young used to deal out to not only his wife, but his daughter as well; although a good deal of the reports mention complaints or concerns about domestic disturbances, one such report mentions a neighbor calling in with the suspicion that Amanda was being abused. At the time the neighbor told police that she had seen Amanda with bruises on her arms and legs that she knew couldn't possibly just be from a bit of roughhousing, but she later recanted her statements a week afterward, for reasons unknown.
> 
> Amanda at that point of time would have been between the ages of nine and ten years old, which would have been plenty old enough for her to understand -- at the very least -- that she was being mistreated by her father. Unfortunately, however, she also would have been old enough to understand the consequences she might face from her father if anyone else caught on to that fact.
> 
> One neighbor, Henry Grayle, commented in an interview to _Esquire_ (June 7, 2006), that "[Amanda] always used to go around wearing long sleeved shirts and jeans, even in the summer time when temperatures would usually reach above one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. I remember thinking that it was a bit strange, that a girl like this should always be covered up, especially when her parents didn't seem to dress the same. But of course I wouldn't have seriously questioned it; no one would have. Thomas had a reputation around the neighborhood for having a nasty temper and he'd been in and out of jail a few times right before and after Amanda was born. No one would have wanted to risk getting on his bad side.
> 
> "Amanda though, she was a real sweet little girl, at least as far as I could tell. Real shy, quiet. But very polite too, especially for a girl her age and in that sort of area. Especially with her parents -- both Sarah and Thomas could cuss a blue streak, and they frequently did. Some of the people around tried getting the police involved, but it didn't work; Sarah never pressed charges. I remember my wife told me once that Sarah would frequently defend Thomas and his actions, said that he was really a good man, he'd just had a lot of trouble growing up.
> 
> "'Course, it certainly couldn't have made for a good home life for Amanda, but like I said, most everyone just kept their heads down and tried to ignore it until it got really bad. After a while, you got used to the shouting and crying -- I'm not proud of it now, but at the time it was better just to keep your head down; out of sight, out of mind, all that sort of crap.
> 
> "Thomas used to rough Sarah up pretty good, though. She'd come out of the house with a split lip or black eye. Or worse. One time I saw her hanging out the laundry in the back yard, left arm in a sling. Said she'd tripped on something and fallen down the stairs. I didn't really believe her, but it wouldn't have done much good to argue."
> 
> As for the sort of torment Amanda Young had to endure, one can only guess at. It's been well documented that Thomas Young was a heavy drinker with a quick temper and Mr. Grayle's interview, along with several other witness statements and police records, show that he was abusive. Aside from the recanted testimony of one Mrs. Jackie Talbot, the concerned neighbor and statements made by the Young's babysitter (Wilkens and Turner, 2007) about Amanda Young's crippling fear of the dark (especially concerning the Youngs' basement) during Young's childhood there existed little to no real hard evidence to support the fact that she was continuously emotionally and physically abused by her father.
> 
> But there have been and were other reports where sworn witnesses have stated that Young did not like to be touched and would flinch or lash out angrily at anyone who did and of course, we have Mr. Grayle's comments to confirm that neighbors and family friends were at least vaguely aware that something was going on in the Young home.
> 
> Even these few small reports point quite clearly to the obvious conclusion that Young _was_ abused, and if anyone is still doubtful of this, certainly her later actions provide solid evidence to support this theory as well . . .

 

\- -

 

Her throat was raw from shouting and her eyes from crying. Her hands were bloody and raw from pounding on the wooden door for so long; at this point she was almost too exhausted to be frightened, but her heart continued to pound in her chest, as if she was sprinting a marathon. She didn't know for how long she'd been crying and begging and shouting to be let out of the little storage area underneath the basement stairs, but it felt as if it had been hours. Days, almost.

"Please, Daddy," she'd sobbed, squeezing her eyes shut, even though all around her was thick, suffocating darkness. "Please let me out, I promise I'll be quiet, I'll be really good, just please don't keep me in here."

(there's things in here, horrible awful things, she can't open her eyes, she'll see them and they'll get her, oh help)

Eventually she wasn't able to cry any longer, though, and her hands were sticky with blood from desperately slamming her fists against the door and trying to pry it open with her fingernails. She brought her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and hugging herself tightly, trying to make herself as small as possible. She hadn't even opened her eyes since her father had tossed her in with a grunt, telling her to _shut the fuck up, you'll wake the goddamn neighbors, then you'll really have something to cry about_ , and bolted the door shut.

She could hear, just vaguely, the sound of her mother crying and her dad shouting a few more things as he stomped up the cellar steps and slammed the door behind him. But it had all gone quiet after a minute or so, and that was when she really started to shout and cry.

The darkness was horrible. So horrible, she thought, this is what it feels like to be dying. She imagined herself in a casket, banging against the lid to be let out. But whoever it was that was burying her didn't know she was still alive; they just kept piling down the dirt on top of her, until it squeezed all the air out of the box entirely. That was what this felt like now, with her raw throat and her tongue, thick and swollen in her mouth.

And she had an awful headache. It felt like someone was pressing pins into her temple, sticking them into her ears. She clutched herself tighter and began to shiver.

Five hours later, her mother came down to let her out. Amanda's wet pajamas were stripped off, tossed into the laundry bin, her face was washed clean and her hair neatly combed. Salve was applied to the cuts and bruises on her hands and her mom gave her an ice pack for her swollen wrist.

"Come on," she said. "We'll fix things."

She did it all with a stoic expression on her face, not even a hint of a comforting smile, just dark, blank eyes and dry lips pressed into a thin, hard line, her jaw set. When Amanda was cleaned up and in fresh clothes, her mother bent to give her a hug. Amanda stiffened; it felt wrong, somehow. Like it wasn't really her mother hugging her, just some stranger. It felt completely unnatural. Her stomach twisted into anxious knots and her head spun and she thought she was going to throw up.

She went outside a little while later to untie Max from the tree in the backyard, embracing him so hard that when she pulled back she thought maybe she should check him for bruises. He'd licked her face and hands and it was so nice that she almost felt like crying.

At school, she skipped out after recess, hiding beneath the bleachers by the football field, waiting for everyone else to leave, to signal that it was time for her to walk home. Pretend like the past evening hadn't happened, that she was just fine, that she'd spent the whole day being productive, thank you very much, she'd be upstairs in her room doing homework if anyone needed her.

(she could learn a few fucking things from you, goddamn bitch)

She kicked at a rock, sent it flying across the pavement.

Her wrist was still aching.

She was ashamed at how she was when her mother had come downstairs to let her out. Dirty, bloody, crying. Wet pants. She thought about them going into the washing machine, spinning around and around in soapy water. Pictured them hanging on the clothes line out back. The afternoon sun beating down on them, drying them out, stiffening them up again. All brand-new like.

"Here you go," her mother would say, setting them down on her bed, neatly folded. As if that was just that, like she'd just gotten grass stains on the knees or something like that. Something simple. Something normal. She shoved her hands into her pockets, kicked another rock off the edge of the sidewalk, watched a car zoom past.

Thought about stepping into the road.

(i'll give you something to cry about)

 

 

\- -

 

Her father said that he didn't see Max in the driveway, but Amanda knew that that was a goddamn lie. Not like it was surprising that her father would do it -- both lie and kill Max -- but what made her angriest was that he didn't even _try_ to be sorry about. Like he'd just been waiting for the right moment to back his truck out of the driveway so he could hit Max in a way that looked as accidental as possible.

But it wasn't an accident, Amanda knew. She'd been sitting on the front step playing catch with Max when her father had come out of the garage and opened the hood of his truck, tinkering a bit with the engine. She tossed the ball to Max; it bounced once before he caught it in mid-air. He trotted over dutifully with the ball, dropping it at her feet. She tossed it again, but this time Max started over to the garage at the sound of her father slamming the truck hood shut, the ball forgotten. Amanda sighed and stood up, stretching, going to retrieve the ball herself; her father might be cross if she just left it sitting there in the yard and she didn't want to think about being sent down to the cellar again, not after she'd just spent the past two nights down there.

With another sigh, she bent down and picked up the ball; it was wet with Max's saliva. She grimaced and held it delicately between two fingers, whistling for Max. But there was no sound of his collar and license jangling as he ran up to her -- instead, Amanda heard the start of an engine followed by a high-pitched, sickening yelp. Even as she was turning, she knew what had happened. It was so terrible --

(why why why)

\-- that she couldn't even cry.

Max lay on the driveway, bleeding, one whole side of his body just fucking _crushed_ against the pavement, eyes staring up glassy and blank at the sky. She couldn't even move, she was frozen in space. Her father had parked the car along the curb and was striding over to her.

"Amanda," he was saying, but he didn't look upset. Just bored, almost. "Amanda, I'm sorry, he just ran out behind the car, I didn't even see him." He tried to pull her into a hug, but Amanda ducked away, running over to where Max was and dropping to her knees. She didn't want him touching her. Not ever. It was fake, it was so fucking fake.

(oh god, max)

"Hey," she whispered, feeling tears slid down her cheeks. One of them fell and landed on her knee with a tiny splash. "Hey, Max, it's all right, it's all right, come here," she reached for him, she couldn't help it. All she could do was stare at him, broken and bloody, his guts torn out and rib cage just crushed. He reminded Amanda of a paper doll that had been stepped on.

(oh you fucking bastard i'll fucking kill you just fucking _kill_ you)

There was blood all over her hands, warm and wet. She pet his fur, mindlessly pushing it back. She could make it right, she could, she just had to try --

(fucking _call someone_ )

\-- and everything would be okay, she just needed to think about it. Max would be okay, he would, she'd wake up in a moment and be back in the cellar this morning and this would all just be a dream. It couldn't be real. This couldn't have happened, he was just with her a second ago.

The blood looked pink against his fur.

Like bubblegum, she thought, and threw up.

 

 

\- -

 

Things alternated between being bad and awful.

For a while she briefly considered asking her mother for another dog, but finally decided against it. No doubt whatever pet she got, dog or not, would end up with its blood and guts splattered across the back of her father's truck's bumper. It was best, she knew, just to not even think about it any more, and relegated herself instead to occasionally offering scraps of food and a bit of love to her neighbor's cat, Night, when it wandered into their backyard.

She didn't breathe a word to it to her mother or father, who she could imagine just imagine getting into some rage one night (or day) and driving up onto the sidewalk and running Night right over. And he probably would, too, it was more than just her morbid imagination; she knew first hand that when her father was angry or drunk (or worse, both), that was when nightmares become reality.

This guy she knew, Kyle, who was in her eighth grade algebra class but still a year and a half older than her, and was her friend but also sort of wasn't, had a dog called Snaps. He told Amanda that they'd named the dog after it's bright, golden-brown colored coat.

"See," he'd said, petting the dog and holding out a treat for her to give it. "She's a mix between an Irish Setter and a Golden Retriever, and when my younger sister saw her, she said that Snaps' fur reminded her of ginger snap cookies. Originally we wanted to name her something else, but my sister kept calling her 'snaps,' and the name stuck." He paused, scratching behind the dog's ear. "I guess it's sort of lame."

"No, it's nice," Amanda told him, offering the dog the treat she'd been holding. Snaps' tongue brushed against her fingertips and she giggled, sitting back on her ankles. "You're lucky; I wish my family had a dog." She wanted to add, _too bad it wouldn't be able to survive being around my dad_ , but she didn't. She knew enough not to. Snaps nudged Amanda's hand with her nose, looking for more treats; she smiled and stroked along the top of his head.

Soft; for a moment, she thought of Max. She wanted to cry.

Instead, she said, "I'm bored. Let's do something."

"Like what?"

"Dunno."

Kyle frowned, obviously thinking. And then, slowly, "Well, my mom's got some whiskey tucked away in the back of the closet. Do you want some?"

Amanda had never had alcohol before; she said as much. Kyle grinned and without another word went to go fetch the bottle. As Amanda waited for him to get back, leaned back against the couch, still idly stroking Snaps' fur, she wondered what whiskey would taste like. She thought maybe it had to taste pretty good, since her mom and father seemed to drink it more than water. But when Kyle got back, unscrewed the cap and handed it to her, she nearly choked on it; it tasted like smoke and pine and burned like fire all the way down her throat. She tensed, ready to be sick, feeling it slosh around in her stomach.

"Ugh," she coughed, wiping at her mouth with her sleeve. "Gross."

Kyle took the bottle from her and took a drink of his own. He swallowed and made a face. "You're right, actually. 'Sprobably why my mom says it's an acquired taste. But it tastes like fucking shit," he said, right before he took another swig of it, gripping the neck of the bottle so hard Amanda thought it might break. She scowled at him.

"If it tastes like shit, why're you drinking it?"

"'Cause," he told her, grimacing.

It seemed like a good enough reason.

She'd never had sex before, had never even been kissed before, but somehow they managed to drink their way through half the bottle, and without even knowing it she'd gotten so tipsy and light-headed and _happy_ from the whiskey that she just wanted to kiss everyone and everything, wanted to feel someone else's body pressed against her own.

In the back of her mind, somewhere buried beneath the haze of alcohol, she knew she shouldn't really being doing this, even as she laced her fingers into the front of Kyle's sweatshirt and pulled him in for a kiss. She thought it was okay, as far as first kisses went -- not like she would have known anyway if it was bad. He didn't really move much at first, just kept his lips pressed firmly against hers and she thought for a moment that she was doing something wrong. But then he shifted forward onto his hands and kissed her (what she thought was) properly.

There was a lot of tongue. She was mildly disgusted by it at first, but after a few more minutes, it wasn't too bad. A bit sloppy, maybe, but overall okay. As she put her hand on the back of Kyle's neck, unsure and hesistent, she couldn't help but wonder how many girls he had kissed before her. Maybe a lot. Maybe only some. Maybe she was his first kiss as much as he was hers. But he _felt_ like he knew what he was doing, shifting forward a bit more and pulling her to him.

Somehow his hand found its way inside her shirt. She gasped as his cold fingers brushed against her stomach and then held her breath as they moved up further, palm covering her breast and squeezing it gently. It wasn't bad, but it felt strange, somehow. She hadn't pictured this sort of thing before, especially hadn't pictured _herself_ doing this kind of thing before.

Maybe she was supposed to say something. A hot, heavy silence hung in the air as Kyle's mouth dropped to her neck, sucking on a spot until blood rose to the surface, his hand pushing up under her bra, giving her breasts another squeeze, this time rougher than the first.

"This is nice," Amanda said lamely, because she couldn't think of anything else to say. And she hated silences.

"Yeah," Kyle murmured, sounding preoccupied. He pulled his hand from her shirt, began to undo his belt and jeans. Amanda watched with lazy anticipation, already knowing what was going to come next, without actually knowing. He was hard; he took her hand and guided it to his boxers. She stroked him hesitantly through his boxers, uncertain. He groaned, gripping her wrist tightly. Yeah, all right.

They fucked awkwardly on the couch, which was too narrow and lumpy for it to be at all comfortable. Amanda could feel a spring at the base of her spine, pressing into her through the cushions, and she wished she could shift to get more comfortable, but Kyle was too heavy on top of her. She had one leg wrapped loosely around his thighs, as he grunted and pushed into her.

It hurt. A lot. Even the alcohol didn't dull that.

Later, she would think about counting the spots on the ceiling, about pressing her hands against Kyle's back but never really feeling it. After a few moments of awkward thrusting, she'd tuned out almost completely; it was just the same, monotonous thrusting, in and out, again and again. She wondered if maybe she was supposed to do something, but she didn't know _what_.

They hadn't even bothered to take off their clothes. Her skirt was bunched up around her waist, her underpants still around one ankle. Any second, she thought, Kyle's parents could be home. Or his sister could come in, back from school early. She imagined the look on Kyle's sister's face, pink with embarrassment , mouth turned down in disgust. She tried to imagine what her own face would look like, tried to imagine the flush of shame she'd feel at being caught doing something like this.

She swallowed hard. Her mouth was so dry; she probably should have drunk some water in between swigging whiskey. Kyle moved his mouth to her breast, sucking on her nipple through her shirt; she moaned involuntarily, jerking up against him.

It was only four minutes, but it felt like ages. Eventually he came and after a minute of heavy panting, he climbed off her. He let out his breath in a _whoosh_ , combing his hair back with his fingers. He was red and sweaty . The whole room smelled like sex, a mixture of salt and sourness. Her parents would be able to smell it on her, for certain; it would be a one way trip to the basement stairs and she'd be lucky if she got let out in a week.

(no good dirty fucking slut, just like your mother)

She'd have to throw her clothes in the washer as soon as she got home. Take a scalding hot shower and scrub herself clean until she was shiny and pink. What they don't know won't hurt them, but what they _did_ know would hurt _her_. She sat up, straightening out her clothes, running a hand down the front of her blouse to smooth out the winkles.

"Did you come?" Kyle asked.

It seemed like a very important question. He stared at her, expectant.

(no)

"Yes. You were really good."

"Cool." He grinned. Then, "My mom's gonna be home soon."

Amanda shrugged. "Yeah, all right. I have to get home anyway."

He leaned forward, pressed a kiss to her cheek. "See you tomorrow in class? If you want, you could always come over later. We could nick some more alcohol. Or I bet I could get my sister to get us some, if you wanted. Yeah?"

Another shrug. "Yeah, maybe. Probably not tomorrow, though, actually. My dad's got the day off and he'll get suspicious if I don't come straight home from school," she lied. Her dad wouldn't be home at all, and even if he was, he probably wouldn't even notice if Amanda didn't come home at all. It was only when she _was_ at home did he notice her, and she certainly didn't want that kind of attention.

She stood up, running her fingers through her hair. It was probably wild and messy looking; she'd go outside and everyone would know what she'd done. She felt a swell of panic at that and bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. She had to get home; she said as much.

Kyle nodded. "Okay. See you."

"Thanks."

In the shower, at home, she split open her plastic disposable razor to get at the blade. It wasn't as sharp as the box cutter, so she had to press down harder than usual, digging into her skin. She drew seven bright red lines on her arm, just below her shoulder, wincing as the warm water hit the fresh wounds. The blood mixed with the water and ran down her arm in little rivers of pink-orange color. She made a few more cuts, this time along her forearm, just because she liked the sting from the water, watching blankly as blood dripped onto the floor, before being washed away down the drain.

It was the second time she'd ever cut herself. In a way, she'd expected it to be less fulfilling than last time -- but it hadn't. This excited her more than she thought maybe it should.

The house was empty even after she'd dried off and gotten dressed into a fresh set of clothes, bandaging up the wounds on her arm. She didn't know where her mother was and it was too late for her father to still be at work, so he had probably stopped at a bar on the way home. Which meant there'd be peace until at least much later this evening. She breathed a sigh of relief, falling back onto her bed, suddenly exhausted.

Three hours later, and she was jolted from sleep by the sound of the front door being slammed.

She heard footsteps in the hallway coming towards her room and she sat up quickly, bracing herself, but it was just her mother, who smiled weakly.

"I brought home dinner."

"I'll be there in a minute."

Her mother nodded, but it was too slow, like she hadn't even heard what Amanda had said. She didn't even look up before turning and shuffling back down the hall to the kitchen. Amanda slipped out of bed and padded over to her nightstand: eight o'clock. Still a few more hours of peace then, at least. Hopefully.

Outside, the stars shone like diamonds against a black velvet backdrop.

 

 

\- -

 

From _A Bright Red Scream_ , by Marliee Strong (Penguin: 1999), p. xi-xii:

 

> . . . _Superficial/moderate_ , the most common type of self-mutilation is found throughout the world in all social classes. It usually begins in early adolescence and refers to acts such as hair-pulling, skin scratching, and nail-biting, which compromise the _compulsive_ subtype, as well as do skin-cutting, carving, burning, needle sticking, bone- breaking, and interference with wound healing, which compromise the _episodic_ and _repetitive_ subtypes.
> 
> Skin-cutting and burning that occur episodically are the most common of all self-mutilative behaviors and are a symptom or associated feature in a number of mental disorders such as borderline, histrionic, and antisocial personality disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative disorders, and eating disorders. I have come to regard these behaviors as morbid forms of self-help because they provide rapid but temporary relief from distressing symptoms such as mounting anxiety, depersonalization, racing thoughts, and rapidly fluctuating emotions. When these episodic behaviors become an overwhelming preoccupation and are repeated over and over again, they begin to assume a life of their own . . .

 

\- -

 

"Amanda," her English teacher called to her just after the last bell had rung and Amanda was packing her things into her messenger bag. "Can you see me for a moment?"

Amanda rolled her eyes, packing away her notebook. This was probably going to be about her last assignment -- which she hadn't turned in. It wasn't like she had purposely skipped out on doing it; the night prior she'd had to sneak out her bedroom window when her father came home, already drunk and pissed about nothing and everything all at once. She'd cooped herself up in one of the reading corner's of UCLA's library basement and had stayed there until it's closing at two. Of course, she'd forgotten her books and everything at home, and there was no way she would have gone to retrieve them, even if it did mean getting a zero on her assignment.

Better that than a black eye.

Her teacher was going through her grade book when Amanda walked up, trying to look as bored and irritated as possible. "Yeah?"

"I noticed you didn't turn in the latest assignment," Mrs. DeWinters said, glancing over at the stack of papers on her desk. "Any particular reason why?"

Amanda shrugged, said nothing.

"See, it's your blase attitude about this that I find troublesome," Mrs. DeWinters told her, reaching into her desk and pulling out something that said _Grade Book_ across the middle in bold, silver lettering. She opened it, thumbing through the pages until she found the one she was looking for, placing it down on her desk and jabbing her finger towards Amanda's name and the long line of zeros that came after it for missed assignments.

"Yeah," Amanda said weakly, pretending to look at her grades but really just staring at a white spot near the corner of the desk. She wondered what had caused it, how long it had been there, if anyone had ever tried to get rid of it. Maybe the desk had just come like that -- by why would anyone manufacture a desk that had spots on it, especially ones as big and noticeable as that one? Maybe someone had just spilled white out on it and had never bothered to clean it up. They just let it sit there until it became a permanent part of the desk. "Well, yeah, I mean, I guess that's . . . not so great."

Mrs. DeWinters sighed, sitting back in her chair and folding her hands in her lap. "I just don't understand," she said. "All of your previous teachers said that you were a delight to have in class, that you always did well on assignments. Even now, if you look, you'll see that you were doing just fine at the beginning of the year, but now you've tapered off. You've barely turned in any work at all and you don't participate in class."

There was a scab on her hand, near the space between her thumb and forefinger. It was new; she'd only cut there two days prior. She picked at it, anxious. Mrs. DeWinters was looking at her like she expected some sort of response or excuse or apology, even. But Amanda didn't know what to say. Sorry, my father's been getting drunk more these days. Sorry, it's hard to do your homework when you can't even _be_ at home. Sorry, but the last time I tried to write for class my hand was shaking so much that I split the pencil and half and ended up dripping blood all over it.

Another sigh from Mrs. DeWinters. Disappointment. Failure. Well, that's it then.

She picked a bit harder at her scab, pulled it off completely. In the space that was left, blood welled up, brilliant and bright. Satisfying. She said, "Sorry. I'll try and do better from now on."

"Is everything all right, Amanda?" Mrs. DeWinters said, so suddenly that it caught Amanda off guard.

"What?" It came out much more defensive than she intended.

Mrs. DeWinters smiled apologetically, holding up her hands. "I'm just asking," she said. "I just thought that maybe -- "

"Everything's fine," Amanda said, trying very hard to sound convincing. Fuck knows what would happen if anyone started asking questions, but she knew, almost instinctively, that no one else could know about her father. About the cellar. About the cuts that made a crisscross pattern along her arms, across her thighs.

When she was nine years old, her neighbor, Mrs. Talbot, had seen one of the bruises on her arm. The moment Mrs. Talbot had seen it, her eyes had grown dark, and Amanda just _knew_ that nothing good would come of it. The whole time she sat in Mrs. Talbot's foyer, listening to her on the phone with the police, picking nervously at tear in the fabric of the couch cushion, all she could think about was what her father was going to say.

What her father was going to _do_.

He'd been furious, of course. _More_ than furious, actually, and Amanda had almost pissed herself in fear at the sight of him looming in the doorway to her bedroom an hour after the police had left. She hadn't told them anything, had just mumbled that everything was fine and that sometimes she just got a little rough when playing outside. And it had been almost funny, because with the police at her house, her parents suddenly turned into the nicest people in the world. Her mother had given her a hug, her father had ruffled her hair.

"Mandy," he'd said, in a voice so sweet it had to be poison, "you've got to be more careful, right?"

And she'd nodded dutifully, smiled up at the policemen as sweetly as she could. Nothing wrong here, not at all, just a nice happy family, one step away from having a garden out front and a little white-picket fence. And then her parents, right in front of the police and everyone else, made her go apologize to Mrs. Talbot for getting her all worried.

Mrs. Talbot had looked like she didn't really believe her, when she'd apologized and said it was nothing, but she'd smiled anyway and said that it was fine. And somehow that had just been enough, doing that, because the police left shortly after and Mrs. Talbot said that it was all just a big misunderstanding and that was that. Open, shut, and closed. Happens all the time, really; no need to get upset about it.

Her father had knocked her down, kicked her in the stomach, and she'd thrown up and that made him even _more_ angry, so he gave her two black eyes, a bloody lip, and locked her down under the cellar steps for almost two days straight. When her mother finally came down to let her out, Amanda had been exhausted and felt almost too sick to move; the light hurt her eyes so much that she stayed all day in her room all day huddled under the blankets.

Until her father had come home, and then the cycle started all over again.

At school, she fell asleep at her desk during History class and was sent to the principal's office. No one asked about her black eyes. If they had, she would have said she got them fighting with one of the kids on her street; it wasn't as if anyone would have followed up to make sure her story was true.

"Sorry," she said again, and desperately hoped Mrs. DeWinters would think she was being truthful. "I'm sorry that I've been, um, slacking. I'll make up the work, I promise. I'll do better. Please don't tell my parents, they'd be so disappointed."

(disappointed, yeah, you'll get the fucking shit kicked out of you)

Mrs. DeWinters eyed her suspiciously, but she said, "All right. But if your work doesn't improve, I'll have to send you home with a note for them to sign and return."

"Yeah. I mean, yes, of course," Amanda said, swallowing hard. "Can I -- can I go now?"

"Yes, Amanda, you can go," Mrs. DeWinters said, turning away.

 

 

\- -

 

Found repeatedly written on a page of a middle school notebook owned by Amanda Young:

 

> _Some people live with the fear of a touch / and the anger of having been a fool / they will not listen to anyone / so nobody tells them a lie . . ._

 

\- -

 

From _Playing Games_ , by Daniel Matthews (Published in the November, 2009, issue of _The Reader's Digest_ as a "Drama in Real Life" article):

 

> . . . looking back now, of course I can see the signs. But at the time I was scared -- we all were, and no one was thinking clearly. No one questioned why Amanda was being tested again, no one wondered why she wasn't coughing like the rest of us. No one thought about why she didn't seem to be scared at all, really just going through the motions as if she'd done it a hundred other times before. She was so nice, too. A bit cold, but nice. As nice as anyone could have been in that sort of situation. She looked out for me. And I remember the way she held Laura when she died; she was crying. She seemed so fragile. If you'd seen her then, you wouldn't have known what she was, that she was really behind it all.
> 
> She just seemed so normal, like she genuinely cared . . .

 

\- -

 

The first time that she cut herself, she was thirteen.

She didn't really understand it at the time; it was strange, the way the blood dripped into the sink basin, drop by drop, just so bright and _red_ against the ceramic, which had hard water staining around the drain. When her mother cleaned, she'd always get an old toothbrush and scrub at it, but it never seemed to help much. The stains were still there, white on white, like lime washing down the side of a brick building. You could only see them with the light on and when you titled your head just so.

(they blend right in, you wouldn't even notice them unless you were trying, they look just so normal)

The razor had been in the garage, one of those box cutters that her dad used sometimes for odd jobs around the house. She'd been taking out the trash --

(her mom forgot to do it again, had fallen asleep on the couch smelling of whiskey, but that's all right, she didn't mind helping out)

\-- and she saw it just sitting there on one of the shelves near the back door. She must have seen it a million times and had never once had a passing thought about it. But she did today. It was strange; today her gaze lingered on the blade; she saw in her mind's eye her father cutting through packing tape, saw rope being sawed through. She picked it up, held it in her hand. The metal was smooth and cool against her skin. It wasn't as heavy as she expected it to be.

The dim, fluorescent light in the garage glinted off the blade. If she held it at the right angle, she could almost see her reflection in it. Long, mousy brown hair. A thin face, dark eyes, a smattering of just barely-visible freckles along the bridge of her nose and underneath her eyes. There was a cut on her cheek from earlier that day and it was a little swollen. She touched it, flinched. It was still smarting.

She tightened her grip around the box cutter just a tiny bit more. Thought about the empty whiskey bottles in the recycling.

It felt, to Amanda, as if it were all a dream. As if she was looking at herself from far off; she could feel herself moving, knew, instinctively, _what_ she was doing, but at the same time it felt as if she wasn't really herself. Like there was something lodged in the back of her mind, whispering things, urging her onwards. There wasn't, but it felt like there was. Everything was so out of reach right now, so out of control.

The doorknob felt warm against her hand, and the door almost too heavy to close. She locked it tight, stared at herself in the mirror. Her hair was falling into her eyes; she swept the loose strands away, tucking them behind her ear. Downstairs she heard the sound of her mother up and about; she could hear the clinking of glass and the soft bang of cabinets being closed. After a few more moments, it was quiet again.

The silence was unbearable.

"Well," she said, to break it. "Well."

(goddamn ungrateful little bitch)

She traced her finger tips along the edge of the blade. Not as sharp as she thought it would be.

"Amanda?" she heard her mother call up the stairs. "Amanda, are you here?"

"Yes," she said, not taking her eyes off the box cutter. "Yeah, I'll be down in a moment mom. Just washing up."

There was a pause. Then, "Your father will be home soon."

Amanda didn't respond.

"I'll be back in a moment. I'm just running out to the store."

(drank up all the fucking booze)

"Yeah, all right."

She listened for the sound of the front door closing.

Silence, again. It felt like being locked underneath the stairs all over again; that devastating emptiness of silence. No one would hear a thing, even if she cried. Begged. Pleaded. And even if they did, they wouldn't come for her. She felt that same rush of shame and fear that she felt that first night, in the cellar the same feeling as when she'd walked back from school the next morning. It bubbled up inside her, threatening to spill out.

Suddenly she felt as though she must scream or cry or something, because --

One breath. In, then out. Nice and slow. See? It's so easy to do. Just breathe. Just fucking breathe and you'll be all right.

(she feels like she's soaring)

Here's the blade, right here, still in her hand; the cool metal grounds her, just for a moment. She rolls up her sleeve. There's a dark, purple bruise on her forearm, the edges of it already growing a disgusting yellow-green color. Healing, finally.

It didn't hurt, not at first. Amanda pressed the blade against the bare, pale skin on the underside of her forearm, drew a line across. Blood welled up in the cut; she turned her arm over, watched a few small droplets fall into the sink. Red stains now, to match the white ones. These will be scrubbed out though, gone before anyone else can see them.

She thought, It's so easy.

Another cut. Then another. Then another. Until there was a row of them all along her arm, varied in size and shape, but it didn't matter. It felt like she was coming back down after flying, slamming face first into the cold ground of reality. She dropped the blade into the sink, stumbled back against the wall, slid down until she was sitting on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.

A thin trickle of blood ran down her arm. She looked at the cuts on her arm, the blood. It felt real, but it didn't look real. It looked like something out of a comic book, the red ink running from too many printings and blurring with the others. Soft. She reached out and touched it, dragged her fingers across the fresh wounds, felt her fingertips get wet.

(amanda, darling, come here, what's wrong, let me see what's happened to your arm, oh, how'd you get this, let me make a call, i'll be right back, you just stay right there sweetheart)

Her blood was so _red_. And sticky.

(no sir, i swear, i'm just a bit rough when i'm playing outside, i fell off a swing, mommy got me an ice pack and let me watch television for a whole two hours, whatever i wanted)

There was a soft bang, the sounds of feet scuffling up the stairs. A knock on the bathroom door. "Amanda," her mother said. "Amanda, are you all right?"

Amanda lifted her arm to her mouth, gave her cuts a small, experimental lick. The blood tasted metallic, almost like copper. She knew that blood didn't really taste like copper, though. That it was meant to taste like iron. Last year her Biology teacher was talking about how the brain identified tastes and he said that most people didn't know that when they tasted blood, it actually tasted like iron, but since the tongue had "learned" the taste of copper, it assumed that blood was meant to taste like that.

"It's just all the same metallic taste to your brain, really," he had said, before moving on to something else.

She licked her lips.

"I'm fine," she said.

 

 

\- -

 

From _Current Medical Diagnosis & Treatment_, (McGraw Hill, 2009):

 

> Self-mutilation is a general term for a variety of forms of intentional self-harm without the wish to die. Cutting one's skin with razors or knives is the most common pattern of self-mutilation. Others include biting, hitting, or bruising oneself; picking or pulling at skin or hair; burning oneself with lighted cigarettes, or amputating parts of the body.
> 
> Self-mutilation has become a major public health concern as its incidence appears to have risen since the early 1990s. One source estimates that 0.75% of the general American population practices self-mutilation. The incidence of self-mutilation is highest among teenage females, patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and patients diagnosed with one of the dissociative disorders . . .

 

\- -

 

[part two](http://immortality.livejournal.com/648336.html)


	2. Chapter 2

From  _Jigsaw_ , p. 159:

 

> From her autopsy, we know that Young was a self-injurer. How far back this behavior started no one can even make guesses to, but statistically most self-injurers begin when they are in their mid to early teens, and, given Young's less than pleasant upbringing, it is perhaps safe to assume that she began as a teenager. In fact, it may have been this tendency to self-harm that lead Young to drugs in the first place, substituting them for razor blades and cigarette lighters. The stress of prison would have been unbearable for her, and it is most likely that Young was desperate to keep her self-injuring habits as much as a secret as possible, so she went for a self-harming method that could be done openly, without much question or thought from observers. 
> 
> Drugs would therefore have allowed Young to commit self-harm but in a "safer" way. But in passing Kramer's test, Young would have been forced to give up what had become her safety net and thus had to fall back into old habits. Whether or not John Kramer was aware of the fact that Young was a self-injurer is up for debate; the placement of her newest injuries prior to her death (the inner thighs) suggest that he did not. However, the fact that Young also had severely injured her right hand (by a device later identified as a leather cutter), also lends credibility to a possibility that Kramer would have seen the wounds and thus determined she was weak and in need of yet another test.
> 
> This secret, combined with the pressure of having to take care of Kramer while also acting in his stead would have undoubtedly been a huge stressor for Young. The very fact that her injuries, upon examination by the county medical examiner, were found to be quite fresh proves that Young was beginning to unravel. Her emotional and mental state at this point in time most certainly had to have been quite weak and unstable. Perhaps this helps to explain why she lashed out so fiercely at Lynn Denlon . . .

 

 

\- -

  
  
  
She didn't go to see Kyle again. Not the day after they'd slept together or even a week after. She made one lame excuse after another as to why she couldn't see him, but the truth was, she was scared. There were cuts on her arms that she could offer no explanation to and she knew that, this time -- or rather, the  _next_  time -- they had sex, it wouldn't be a lot of clumsy fumbling on the couch with their clothes still on. He'd want to do it right; her mind recoiled in horror at the very thought of him seeing her scars. There would be questions asked, then, and she wouldn't know how to answer. She  _wouldn't_  be able to answer, no matter how much she wanted to.  
  
(and her parents, god, they -- )  
  
Luckily for her, two weeks after she'd stopped coming around to his house, he got sent to juvie for helping some boys from the district high school jack a car. It sucked that she didn't have anyone to talk to in class anymore and she missed being able to go see Snaps whenever she wanted, but she told herself it was for the best. Just one less person to worry about, one less person to watch out for. And in the end, he would have just let her down anyway, she knew. Better that they just never got started in the first place.  
  
At home, her mother found blood stains on the insides of her shirt sleeves. Amanda said that she'd fallen and scraped up her arms. Her mother told her "not to get hurt, for Christ's sake, your father and I aren't going to pay your damn medical bills because you think you're fucking invincible." Amanda nodded, stared a space on the wall behind her mother's head. In the future, she said, she would take care to be more careful.   
  
And she meant it too, but just not in the way her mother thought she did.  
  
(good enough)  
  


 

\- -

  
  
  
From  _The Adverse Psychological Effects on Abused Children in Relation to Serial Murderers_ :

 

> . . . Although most chalk Amanda Young's willingness to be an apprentice to Kramer as merely Stockholm Syndrome, it is more likely that Young suffered from an even more serious, debilitating mental illness.
> 
> Most likely Young suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), which is described as "a prolonged disturbance of personality function in a person characterized by depth and variability of moods" (National Library of Medicine, 2006). This sort of mental illness typically involves unusual levels of instability in mood and black and white thinking (or, as it is also called, 'splitting'). BPD often manifests itself in idealization and devaluation episodes, as well as chaotic and unstable interpersonal relationships, self-image, identity, and behavior; as well as a disturbance in the individual's sense of self. It is important to note that in extreme cases, this disturbance in the sense of self can lead to periods of dissociation.
> 
> In Amanda Young's sworn police testimony, originally published in  _Protégé: The Young Commission Report_ , Young describes her experience in her Jigsaw trap as being almost like an out of body experience, as if she isn't really there. Specifically, she states: "I felt . . . Out of place. No. Not like that, I don't think. I can't explain it. [killing cellmate Donnie Greco] felt like I was watching someone else move my body for me. Someone else was moving my arm up and down." 
> 
> While Young's entire testimony provides some interesting insight into her character, this statement in itself is very interesting. Daniel Matthews, one of Jigsaw's other victims, can and has on several occasions been able to recount his experience in what is referred to as the "House Games" with striking clarity. In fact, in his article in  _Reader's Digest_ , he says that, in contrast to Young's fuzzy uncertainty, everything seemed almost hyper-realistic to him. While both of them seem to agree that their respective scenarios felt almost unbelievable, Matthews does not describe the same disconnect that Young does.
> 
> In fact, no other Jigsaw survivors (of, which, there are quite few) describe the disconnected sense of self that Young talked about in her sworn testimony.
> 
> John Thompson, in his book  _Jigsaw_ , pointed out that Amanda Young was a self-injurer, as gathered by her autopsy report. Self-injury is on the checklist for a medical diagnosis of BPD, as well as substance abuse (and Young's addiction to heroin certainly stands on its own fact, unlike Thompson's suggestion that heroin was simply another method of self-injury for Young), as well as dissociative symptoms that Young herself described. 
> 
> Evidence of other BPD symptoms, such as identity disturbance (or, a markedly unstable self-image), fear of abandonment, extreme idealization and devaluation, as well as chronic anxiety and feelings of emptiness, are present all throughout Young's life. Let us return for a moment to Thomas Young . . .

 

 

\- -

  
  
  
From  _Rebirth and Apprenticeship: Documented Facts and Specific Conclusions Derived from the Case of Amanda Young_ , by Janet R. Winslow (Tulane University Press: 2008), p. 34:

 

> Somewhat interesting to note is that Young was bisexual. Though it does nothing to either help or hurt her case as a serial killer, it does however help to paint a fuller picture of the life of the quieter, though perhaps more violent of the pair. After her death, her cousin, Stephen Rowery, described in private interview a scene that he witnessed while visiting the Young family one summer when Amanda was approximately sixteen years of age . . .

 

 

\- -

  
  
  
She knew a guy who knew a girl.  
  
The guy's name was Paul. The girl's was Laura. Laura was two years older than Amanda and went to community college downtown. She said that she was studying to be a nurse, though Amanda didn't think that she looked like the type of person nurses usually were. She had this hard, mean look to her that both unnerved and fascinated Amanda, so even after she'd stopped fucking Paul in exchange for cigarettes and cheap vodka, she made excuses to herself (and Laura) as to why she continued to stick around.  
  
Laura had long, light blond hair that looked fake but wasn't. She would spend her afternoons lying in an abandoned soccer field a few blocks over from Amanda's high school, slathering lotion all over herself and dozing in the sun. When Amanda came to see her after school, she'd sit down on the grass and pick at it until she was sitting on the one grassy oasis surrounded by a ring of dirt. Usually Laura would take her top off; she said that she didn't like tan lines. Amanda tried not to stare -- sometimes it worked, most times it did not.  
  
She'd never really looked at another girl's body before. Even in gym when they had to shower and change, she always kept her head down, averted her eyes. Even if there wasn't any meaning to the looking, it still made her feel embarrassed. Ashamed. Self-conscious. She was, for some reason that she didn't really understand, afraid that if she looked, people would look back at her.  
  
(and what would they see, oh, those blood red lines and those purple bruises)  
  
Besides, she didn't really have an interest in girls. Or boys, either, for that matter.  
  
(they'd see someone who they could hurt, think, oh, she's made for this sort of thing)  
  
And it would be wrong to like girls anyway. She knew this instinctively, just like she knew that you weren't supposed to like things like violence or death and other horrible things. And the very idea itself was -- not  _off-putting_ , but she found herself left reeling at the idea of another girl's lips pressed against her own, her soft breasts in Amanda's hands.  
  
(fucking dyke)  
  
"Hey," Laura said. "Put some lotion on for me, will you?"  
  
Amanda looked down at her hands. Imagined picking up the bottle of suntan lotion and squeezing some of it into her hands, sticky and oddly sweet-smelling. Imagined rubbing her palms together before shuffling forward on her knees and putting them against Laura's back. Her skin would be smooth, probably, smooth and warm and she'd make a  _mmm_  sort of noise while Amanda worked her hands in circles, rubbing in the lotion.  
  
She saw the nape of Laura's neck, hair pushed to the side, exposing it, saw the outline of Laura's shoulder blade.  
  
She stood up. "Sorry." Slung her backpack over her shoulder. "Got to go."  
  
Later, in bed that evening, she lay in the darkness thinking about Laura. Laura, in the sun, topless, saying,  _here, go ahead Mandy, just rub me all over_. Laura and her washed out blue eyes. Laura and the inexplicably perfect slope of her neck -- Amanda twisted beneath the sheets and blankets. It was too damn hot in her room, but she didn't dare get up and go into the hallway to turn the heat down.  
  
There was an aching between her legs that she couldn't recall ever feeling before.  
  
Well, no, that wasn't exactly true. She'd felt something like this before, but not this strong, not so urgent. She felt like she was going to explode, as if every single nerve ending in her body had gone into overdrive. She rolled over, pressed herself flush against the mattress. Her hand worked its way clumsily downward, slipping beneath the waistband of her pajama bottoms, underpants.  
  
It was an awkward angle; her wrist began to cramp and ache after only about a dozen or so sloppy strokes, but she persisted anyway, rocking against her hand and the bed, mouth pressed against her pillow to muffle the tiny grunts she was making along with the panting. Her head was spinning; she clutched at the sheets with her free hand, desperately trying to get herself off; at any moment her father could open her bedroom door and see what she was doing. The lick of fear across her stomach at the idea of being caught warmed and melted, pooling down between her thighs and urging her onward.  
  
"Come on, Mandy," she heard Laura's voice say in her ear, felt warm breath against her cheek.  
  
She came with a bit-back moan, jerking against her fingers and biting down so hard on the inside of her cheek that she drew blood. Iron, she though, and let out a shaky laugh as she kept up a lazy pace with her fingers, out of breath and trying to bring herself down.  
  
About half an hour later, there was a knock on her door.  
  
"Amanda," her father said gruffly, his voice thick with sleep, pushing open the bedroom door. Amanda could hear the tell-tale creak of the hinges as it swung open. She counted her blessings for small warnings and tried to slow down her breathing as much as possible. "Are you awake?"  
  
She kept her back to the door and feigned sleep. A few moments later, he was gone.   
  
Three minutes later, she could once more hear him snoring down the hall.  
  
She brought her fingertips to her mouth, gave them a tiny lick before sucking on them, even though by that point they'd mostly dried. It didn't matter. She relished the taste in her mouth, salty and a bit bland, but it was  _her_  nonetheless and she liked the idea of it being a secret, even though it really wasn't. It certainly  _felt_  like a secret, though.  
  
It felt like an accomplishment.  
  


 

\- -

  
  
  
For two weeks, she avoided Laura.  
  
There'd been a heavy feeling of shame and fear and confusion in her stomach when she'd woken up the morning after getting herself off to thoughts of a topless, sunbathing Laura seductively inviting her to run lotion all over her body. Amanda decided that the best way to deal with these feelings would just to just not deal with them at all. And it wasn't so hard to just not think of them at all. She walked around until she found Paul, getting high with a few of his friends, and pulled him behind the school without a second thought, undoing his jeans and jerking him with quick, rough strokes.  
  
Panting, spent, he ran a shaky hand through his hair. It was too long; Amanda didn't like the way it hung in his eyes. He needed a fucking haircut. She leaned back against the brick wall behind the school's gymnasium and wiped her hand on her jeans. The come would probably leave a stain, but what the fuck.   
  
"What was that for?"  
  
Amanda shrugged. "Felt like it."  
  
"Well, I hope you feel like it again sometime. Like tonight. And tomorrow."  
  
"Maybe."  
  
"You know, uh, Laura's been a bit worried about you," he said, zipping his fly back up and buttoning his jeans. She watched him tug on his belt, tightening it back around his waist. "Said she hasn't seen you around for a few weeks. I guess -- well, I don't really know, fuck, I guess she's worried about you."  
  
Amanda gave another little small, noncommittal shrug. "Yeah."  
  
"Yeah, I just thought I'd pass along the favor."  
  
Laura was sitting on Amanda's front porch when she got home, an unlit cigarette held between her lips. Amanda's feet felt like they were made of lead as she trudged up the driveway, then the stairs. Laura eyed her with a hint of a smile dancing across her lips. She had on a sky blue tank top and unbelievably short shorts. Amanda shoved her hands into her pockets and stared straight ahead.  
  
A heavy silence settled between them. Amanda fidgeted, but didn't speak. She wanted to go inside, but she wasn't sure if she could, or should. Paul said that Laura was a bit worried about her, but mostly that wasn't exactly true; Amanda thought that maybe Laura just missed having someone around to talk at.  
  
"So," Laura said.  
  
So.  
  
"I brought some E," Laura said. "Just picked it up from a guy last night. Got a nice discount on it, you know?" She winked, slow and seductive in Amanda's direction. Amanda balled her hands into fights in her pockets. Just breathe. Count it out with me, one and out. Two and out. Three and --  
  
"Great," she said. "Um. Do you want to come in?"  
  
She couldn't remember the last time she'd invited someone in; probably never. Bringing people into her room seemed so personal, but she balked at the idea of having a guest just sitting in the living room or kitchen, especially here and now when her father could be back home at any moment and her mother was most likely passed out on the couch smelling of whiskey and cigarettes. But Laura was sitting on the porch, staring up expectantly and well, there wasn't much else that could be done.  
  
"I've never had E before," she said, as she led the way into the house. "Is it -- "  
  
"Oh, Amanda," a surprised voice said to her left. It was Stephen, her cousin from her mother's side, four years older than her and about a foot and a half taller. Lean and muscular, he reminded Amanda of the type of guys at her school who ran cross country.   
  
She shoved her hands deeper into her pockets, slouching a bit. "I didn't know you'd be here. Who let you in?"  
  
"Uh, your mom did, actually. And it wasn't planned or anything, but I was in the area and my parents had asked me to stop by and just say hello, be polite."  
  
Or spy, Amanda thought, but didn't say as much. By her side, Laura tossed her hair, grinning up at Stephen and extending her hand. "Hi, I'm Laura," she said, with an easy smile that made Amanda's stomach twist into knots. "Are you family, then?"  
  
"Cousin."  
  
Laura held onto his hand a bit too long. Amanda watched as their fingers broke apart, Laura sticking her hands into her back jeans pockets and rocking forward a bit onto her toes. "Cute. I thought you two looked alike, Mandy," she said. Usually Amanda liked it when Laura called her that, but this time it made her scowl. There was something fake about it. It was too sweet.   
  
Stephen said, "Yeah, when we were younger people always used to mistake us for being brother and sister. Remember, Amanda?"  
  
Amanda made a small noncommittal sound. She wished Stephen would just go away and leave them alone. He wasn't even supposed to be here, why couldn't he have just called ahead and asked before coming by, instead of just fucking dropping in as if it would be perfectly okay. Oh, don't worry about us, we're just sitting on the edge of our seats hoping that you'll stop in, even though we haven't seen each other since we were eleven goddamn years old.  
  
She couldn't stand the way Laura was fucking  _looking_  at him.  
  
"Come on," she said, shooting Laura a look. "Let's go."  
  
"Yeah, all right," Laura said good naturedly. As Amanda turned to go, walking down the hall to her room, she heard Laura say to Stephen, "See you around, maybe?" and the sound of Stephen laughing and saying that, yes, maybe they would.  
  
(of course he would, probably fuck in the backseat of his car, don't take your clothes off, just hike up your skirt)  
  
Laura shut the bedroom door behind her and dropped down onto Amanda's bed with a sigh and a grin, reaching into her bra and pulling out a small bag of pills. Amanda sat down next to her, staring out the window as Laura babbled on about how she managed to get the pills in the first place. As if it mattered. They were probably just fucking placebos anyway; not like Laura would have been able to tell the difference.  
  
Dumb bitch, she thought, suddenly angry. "Are we going to take the damn E or not?"  
  
"All right, calm down, Mandy."  
  
"Don't call me that."  
  
Laura rolled her eyes. "Fine.  _A-man-da_ ," she said, annoyingly punctuating each syllable. She popped open the bag and dipped her fingers inside, pulling out two pills, one for each of them. "I don't know what's going to happen exactly, but my friend Sam does it all the time and she says that it makes you feel like you're flying."  
  
Amanda didn't want to talk. She just wanted to --  
  
She reached for a pill, turned it in her fingers. Popped it into her mouth. Swallowed So easy. She could probably take a million of them, if she wanted to. She won't, but she could. Her mouth felt dry and chalky as she watched Laura take a pill of her own, the way she let her head fall back, eyes fluttering closed.   
  
(good girl)  
  
"Hey, com'ere," Laura slurred after a few moments, even though the drugs couldn't have possibly kicked in yet. Amanda didn't think she felt at all different than before, not even the tiniest bit lighter or anything like that. Not flying. Not anything. Beside her, Laura sighed contentedly and fell back onto the bed, crossing her arms and linking them behind her head. Amanda didn't move. She wasn't quite okay with Laura invading her personal space like this, not really. But she couldn't say that.  
  
Laura said, "Amanda, come lie down, you're stressing me out just to look at you." Her hand shot out from behind her head, her fingers wrapped themselves around Amanda's palm, pulling her back. "Let's just lie here for a bit, let the drugs kick in," she went on, apparently oblivious to the fact that their fingers had somehow become intertwined, palms pressed flush together. Apparently she wasn't aware that her thumb was stroking across the back of Amanda's hand.  
  
Amanda felt like screaming.   
  
Or, at least, pulling away and running out.  
  
"I don't feel anything," she said.  
  
Laura's thumb didn't stop its movements. And Amanda didn't untangle their fingers.   
  
"The sun looks, like, really fucking bright in here," Laura said, after what was only probably minutes, maybe even seconds. But it felt like hours. It felt like days and nights and months and decades. Amanda stared up at the shadows that the afternoon sun was casting along the off-white canvas that was her ceiling.   
  
Peripherally, she thought about her father. He might be home soon, but she couldn't remember what time he left this morning; she always left before he did, skirting around the living room where he'd be sitting on the couch, watching the news while munching half-heartedly on burnt toast or sneaking out the window and cutting through the backyard, if she didn't know where he was. She wondered if her mother was up, what Stephen was doing. Maybe on the back porch, drinking iced tea and talking about who the fuck knew what. Certainly the house was too quiet; any second now there'd be yelling and fighting and bloody knuckles and bruised skin. Smoke and booze and the sour smell of sweat and tears.   
  
Maybe now she was high. She couldn't tell. Everything looked a little brighter, a little softer around the edges. She closed her eyes and she saw fireworks behind her eyelids. Beneath her she could feel the bed spinning as the world turned slowly, so, so, so fucking  _slowly_  on its axis. What she didn't notice was that Laura's fingers weren't in hers any longer, that they were slowly creeping up her sleeve.  
  
"Hey," Laura said slowly, confused.   
  
Amanda froze as Laura's fingers traced over the scars on the inside of her arm. It felt as though all of the air had been sucked out of the room. She was being suffocated, buried alive.   
  
(so fucking stupid, stupid cunt, can't do a goddamn thing right)  
  
"Amanda, what're these?"  
  
(i can't breathe i can't i can't i can't)  
  
"Nothing. Just cuts. My cat scratched me, is all."  
  
(i can't)  
  
Laura paused, giggled. "But," she drawled, pulling her hand out of Amanda's sleeve and moving to her stomach, fingers dancing along the pale, exposed skin where her shirt was riding up a bit. "But," she said again, with something between a smirk and a genuine smile, "you don't have a cat."  
  
Amanda swallowed. "Yeah. I don't."  
  
"You're cute," Laura went on, as if she hadn't even heard. "Like your cousin. Stephen? Stephen. You have soft brown eyes, just like him." She brought her hand up to Amanda's cheek, cupping it gently. Amanda thought, oh, this must be what people are like when they're on drugs. She felt entirely disconnected from the rest of the world right now, almost like she was dreaming.  
  
An image sprang to the forefront of her mind then: bent over the skin, a box cutter held in a shaky hand, the water running, blood dripping bright red and bold into the sink. Christ, the blood had been so  _red_. She hadn't expected that. In Biology class she learned that blood was actually blue when it was inside the body, inside your veins. But when you cut yourself open or whatever, the oxygen in the air made it turn red.  
  
She wasn't sure why it did that.  
  
Vaguely she was aware of Laura turning and shifting on the bed, staring at her with wide, curious blue eyes. Amanda wanted to say something then; she felt like she had to. But she couldn't get her mouth to work right. Everything just seemed so out of focus, like looking through a car window in the rain. And then, oh, it felt like everything had slowed down, and Laura was moving in just a bit closer, bridging the gap between them.  
  
Her lips were soft; that was the first thing that Amanda thought when their mouths met. Her lips were soft and slightly sticky with lipgloss that tasted like cherries. And then Laura sighed, pushed into the kiss a bit more, parted her lips and oh, oh,  _oh_. Her tongue swept along just the very edge of Amanda's bottom lip and the sigh that came next was more instinctual than anything else.  
  
Then, "What the  _fuck_."  
  
Amanda jerked away from Laura as if she'd been burned, scrabbling up off the bed and onto her feet, staring at her father in the doorway. He had a look on his face that was a mixture of fury, confusion, disgust, and something else that Amanda couldn't place.   
  
Laura sat up, looking daze. Her eyes flitted back and forth between Amanda and her father. The silence that filled the room was just unbearable. And then Laura said, "Amanda, what's going on?"  
  


 

\- -

  
  
  
From  _The Adverse Psychological Effects on Abused Children in Relation to Serial Murderers_ :

 

> What have must been an especially traumatizing moment in Young's life is one that was described by her cousin Stephen Rowery in  _Rebirth and Apprenticeship: Documented Facts and Specific Conclusions Derived from the Cases of Amanda Young and Mark Hoffman_  (Winslow, 2008) that describes Thomas Young's reaction to walking in on his daughter kissing another girl (supposedly one of Amanda Young's teenage friends) while high on Ecstasy. According to Rowery, the other girl managed to run out of the house just before Thomas Young flew into a rage, knocking his daughter to the floor with a punch. Once she was down he continued to beat her, hitting her with his fists and kicking her.
> 
> Rowery reports that he tried to intervene, horrified by what he was seeing, but he was unable to subdue Thomas Young on his own and eventually ran into the kitchen and called the police. One can only imagine how terrible this event must have been for Rowery to witness, but it must have been more than traumatizing for Young, who was most certainly already in a frail emotional and mental state at the time. This, without a doubt would lead to one of the most important turning events in her life: her father's arrest and subsequent fifteen year jail sentence for child abuse and aggravated battery.
> 
> Instead of siding with her daughter, Sarah Young, almost inexplicably, blamed her for her husband's arrest and sentencing . . .

 

 

\- -

  
  
  
From the sworn testimony of Sarah T. Young, taken before The State Investigatory Board of California in connection with the events of December 1, 2006 in Los Angeles, California (abridged version which follows is from  _Protégé: The Young Commission Report_ , Signet Books: New York, 2008):

 

> Q. Is it correct that your husband was arrested on the 27th of April in 1989, Mrs. Young?
> 
> A. Yes.
> 
> Q. Could you please explain to us why he was arrested?
> 
> A. They said it was because he was abusing our daughter.
> 
> Q. 'They'?
> 
> A. The police, the judge, the prosecutor. All of those people. Whatever you'd like to call them. 
> 
> Q. So you don't agree with your husband's sentencing?
> 
> A. Of course not; it's bullshit. Sure he may have knocked me around a bit when he was drunk, but what husband hasn't? Especially then. And he was a war veteran, he'd fought in Vietnam. Sometimes he could lose his temper, but he never meant it. Amanda was an unruly child.
> 
> Q. On the night that your husband was arrested Amanda was taken to the hospital with injuries that your husband gave her. 
> 
> A. Is that a question?
> 
> Q. We're just trying to make sure that you understand the facts, ma'am. Your husband confessed to beating your daughter. 
> 
> A. He may have hit her a bit. But she probably deserved it.
> 
> Q. 'He may have hit her a bit' is quite an understatement Mrs. Young, don't you think?
> 
> A. I don't know what you mean.
> 
> Q. The doctor who examined your daughter said that he did quite a bit of damage. She had several welts on her back that were the result of your husband striking her with a belt, among many other injuries. The doctor also noticed older bruising from apparent earlier abuse.
> 
> A. My husband wouldn't have done that. He was a good man! It's --  _she_  was the problem.
> 
> Q. So you sympathized with your husband and blamed your daughter?
> 
> A. I'm not saying everything he did was right. But she was -- she was  _wrong_.
> 
> Q. You're referring to the fact that your husband walked in on Amanda kissing another girl?
> 
> A. It wasn't just that. No, of course not. There was a whole lot of goddamn things wrong with her. She didn't have friends. She didn't like to play outside -- what kid doesn't like to do that? She'd just sit in her room and read or draw and God knows what else. She was always too quiet. She would watch people. Something was just off about her.
> 
> Q. Mrs. Young, are you aware that overt passiveness and withdrawal are usually signs that a child is being abused?
> 
> A. What are you trying to say?
> 
> Q. Mrs. Young, we're simply trying --
> 
> A. Are you telling me that I'm wrong? That I'm a fucking liar? That my cunt of a daughter didn't deserve anything that happened to her? Look at what she became! What she  _did_! You tell me if there wasn't something wrong with her, you smug son of a bitch. I'm here to tell you about my daughter and I'm just saying what I should have said a long time ago. There was  _something wrong with her_.

 

 

\- -

  
  
  
From  _Playing Games_ :

 

> . . . she was obviously fragile. I know now that she was in on the whole thing, of course, but when I looked at her, I saw fear. Real, actual fear. I think it's another reason why I find it so hard to believe that she was just this cold-hearted killer; I keep thinking back to that fear I saw . . .

 

 

\- -

  
  
  
The doctor asked her about her scars.  
  
Amanda couldn't even look at him while he was talking, telling her about how they'd seen them when they were examining her to see what sort of damage her father might have caused. She couldn't remember them doing that; the last thing she remembered was the sound of someone -- maybe her dad, or Stephen -- shouting. And then she'd woken up here, in a stiff bed wearing an ugly, embarrassing hospital gown.  
  
So many people  _saw_ , she thought, balling her shaking hands into fists, feeling just on the edge of tears. She had to focus; she stared tugging on a loose thread on the blanket that had been thrown over her. Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, she repeated over and over again in her head until it became a mantra, then just a string of indeterminable words.  _Don'tcrydon'tcrydon'tcry_.  
  
All of those people. The police. The EMT staff. The nurses, the doctors. Other  _patients_. Had they all seen?  _Seen_  what she'd done to herself? They must have. They were so fucking obvious, like a flashing red sign over her head that said  _fucked up_  in big, red-orange letters. Everyone saw them and now everyone knew. Knew that there was something wrong with her.   
  
"Amanda?" the doctor asked tentatively, reaching out and putting his hand on his shoulder.  
  
(fucking dirty cunt, fucking dyke, always knew there was something wrong with you)  
  
She jerked away. "Don't. What?"  
  
"I said, we didn't tell your mother about the scars that we saw," he said, pushing his glasses up on his nose with his index finger. He cleared his throat. "We didn't tell your mother, but, uh, we  _would_  like you to speak to someone here at the hospital before we release you. As a precaution."  
  
"Precaution? For  _what_?"  
  
He looked uncomfortable. "Just to make sure there are no other issues that we're currently unaware of."  
  
They ended up sending her to the hospital shrink and after five minutes of staring each other down across the room, the doctor wrote something down in his notebook and, with a sigh, told her that she was free to go. He didn't even look up as he tore off a note to give to the nurses and handed it to her.   
  
Fucking good that did, Amanda thought, but she was still pleased at how easy it had been.  
  


 

\- -

  
  
  
When she was a junior in high school, there was a boy she really liked named Peter.  
  
He was in her US History class. Sometimes they talked, but mostly they didn't; the majority of the interactions were in class, right before the bell rang or when the teacher stepped outside for a moment. Just a few quick minutes here and there. A question about the weather, maybe, or wondering if either of them had done the last assignment. Sometimes it was a look of exasperation shared across the row of desks during an exam. Nothing earth shattering, by any stretch, but it was still nice.  
  
She didn't really hang out with anyone anymore, not since Laura. She hadn't wanted to talk about what had happened and anyway, she suspected they probably wouldn't want her around either. She could just picture them all standing around awkwardly, staring at her like she was some sort of freak. She could  _hear_  the world 'freak' in her head, as if people were already whispering it behind their hands while looking at her. It wasn't true, but it felt like it could have been.   
  
Not like it would have mattered. She hadn't ever really quite excelled at making friends. It wasn't that she didn't like people (well, not most, anyway), but it just seemed as there was so much effort required. The whole getting to know someone, learning about what they liked and didn't like, trying to see if she actually had anything in common with them -- it just seemed like a waste of time. Four years of high school and they'd be moving onto college. Four years of  _that_  and they'd be moving on to the real world, getting a job, a family, all that crap. A quaint house with a little garden and white picket-fence. Drive a fancy car, have a decent job, and end up with 2.3 kids. Typical. So fucking typical.  
  
What was the point? Everyone just always moved on in the end, proving just how inconsequential your friendship was to begin with. Why bother putting in the effort when everything would just turn to shit in the end? Such a fucking waste. Not worth it in the least.  
  
There were still guys that she slept with, though, who were totally disconnected from everything else going on her life. She'd dumped Paul in favor of a boy named Allen, who she met at a bar one day -- fake ID, the guy working there hadn't even looked twice when she'd ordered a beer -- and ended up fucking in one of the bathroom stalls. She'd hadn't even been paying attention to what he'd been doing, was just so worried that someone would walk in on them. Later, he'd asked if he could see her again; she said yes. And why not? He was as good as anyone. Three years older, tanned, light brown hair. It would never mean anything more than fucking, but so what? That had never mattered before.  
  
There were girls, too, that she liked, but she tried very hard not to think about them. She'd skip gym class and smoke under the bleachers until the period was up. Amanda told herself that she did it because she just didn't want anyone to see her scars and bruises, and it was mostly true, but it was also because she was afraid of what she'd do. Afraid she'd might  _look_. She still had the marks on her back from her father's belt; she knew that he wouldn't be back, not before she was long gone, anyway, but she was still afraid.   
  
(dirty fucking slut, fucking dyke)  
  
But Peter, Peter was different. He was a bit nicer than most of the guys she'd known before. Or so she assumed, anyway, she'd never had more than a ten sentence (if that) conversation with him. But he _seemed_  nice, and that was good enough for her. She liked the way that his eyes weren't exactly green, that they had flecks of brown in them too, the color of hazelnut. She liked the smoothness of his skin, the way his lips curved up into a grin. He always dressed in acid-washed jeans and a t-shirt. It just looked so  _easy_ , like he cared, but really didn't.  
  
She envied him and sort of loved him all at once, in a painfully shy way that made her angry just thinking about. She hated that she felt just so plain and ordinary around him -- and hated herself for feeling like that. She just wished that something would happen between them -- anything, whatever it was -- just so that she could prove to herself that her feelings were pointless. Unfounded. Worthless. She wanted so badly to believe that he was just like all the others that had come before, while simultaneously hoping that he wasn't.  
  
One day, in early April, he said, "Would you like to go out somewhere on Saturday?"  
  
Her heart had skipped a tiny bit then, not unlike when Laura had used to smile at her --  
  
(don't you dare)  
  
\-- and she said, without really thinking, "Yeah, sure."  
  
They went out to the movies; some forgettable slasher movie that had more gore than plot. Twenty minutes in (and she was amazed at his resolve, really), he yawned and stretched and put his arm around her shoulder. Twenty-seven minutes in and he was pressing kisses along her throat. Five minutes more and she had her hand in his pants while he had hers up her shirt, squeezing her breast through her bra.  
  
After the movie, they climbed into the backseat of his car and made love.   
  
She didn't  _want_  to call it that -- lovemaking -- but that was what it was. Or so she assumed, anyway. It wasn't like  _fucking_ , she knew that; there was a distinction. It was slower than how she usually had sex. More patient, more drawn out. He seemed genuinely interested in making her feel good, and while he wasn't particularly skilled in that area, she was pleased that he at least tried. Had good intentions, if not good execution. It was the  _trying_  that mattered, she told herself, when he grunted and pushed into her, both of them just barely able to fit in the backseat like this. It was the thought that counted.  
  
The following Saturday, they did the same thing. Lather, rinse, repeat. It was a little better this time around, Amanda thought, because at least she knew what to expect. The third time around, she didn't even wait for them to get to his car, simply dragged him up to the back row of the theatre and jerked him off; it was less involving, this way. She didn't have to pretend that she liked it, she just had to  _do_  it. He hadn't seemed to mind either way and like she had suspected, he was happy just to get off.  
  
She was both satisfied with and disappointed in him. He wasn't very much like the other boys, but he wasn't very different either. Just sort of plain and ordinary. Middle of the road. He seemed to her like the type of boy that would get married very soon out of college, would settle down with some middle of the road type of girl who wasn't too pretty or too plain, just good looking  _enough_. They would have a few kids, maybe pretend that they were living the American Dream. Vote Republican. Complain about taxes. She could just see him, sitting at the kitchen table on a Saturday morning, his coffee in one hand, his newspaper in the other, grumbling about something politically related.  
  
It wasn't bad, not really. Just, not what she wanted. And she knew that even if she  _did_  want something like that, she'd never end up with it. Girls like her were not made for lives like that; they could only wish for it.   
  
At the end of the month, he asked someone else to the Junior Prom.  
  
In class, he said, "Want to go out again this weekend?"  
  
She'd said yes, but she never showed up. Instead, she drank herself into a stupor from a bottle of whiskey that she stole from her mother's liquor cabinet. The next day she woke up with a long row of cuts on both of her thighs and couldn't even remember doing it, even though her razor was out on her nightstand and blood had dried under her fingernails.  
  
It wasn't like she was sad.  
  
She was just disappointed.


	3. Chapter 3

Once she cut so deep she was afraid, for a few desperate, horrifying moments, that she'd just given herself a death sentence.  
  
She pressed a towel against her arm and silently begged for it to stop bleeding. She hadn't meant to press that hard or go that far, but she'd just felt so numb. She wanted to feel something. Anything. Pain, love, lust, hatred, jealousy. So long as it made her feel alive. The whole day she'd felt like she was only half-existing, caught somewhere between this world and the next. Walking home, it had seemed like the sky was pushing down her her and the edges of the world were closing in and sucking all the air from her lungs.  
  
In class, she'd sat in the back rows and dreamed about what she would do when she got home. She saw the razor blade in her hand, pictured herself sitting on the edge of the bathroom, top off, pale arm stretched out in front of her like an offering. There were red, angry lines across her skin. Those were the fresh scars; the others had faded into a milky tan color. But you could still see them.  
  
(wash it away, but there'll still be a stain)  
  
During the minutes she thought she was dying, she considered what it would be like to be dead. She would feel nothingness, probably, she thought and tried to conceptualize Death in her mind. It was a long road stretching back and forth in every direction until the end of time. It was a vast wasteland of sand and air so thick and hot you were choking on it. It was an impossibly star-filled sky.  
  
It was nothing. It was simply Death. The end of something and beginning of nothing. Silence. Emptiness.  
  
The blood soaked through the towel; she could feel the wetness on her finger tips. Her head spun. She was certain that the air had grown heavier; with each breath her lungs seemed to fill up less and less. She couldn't breathe at all. Standing up, she gripped the edge of the sink with both hands, felt blood slide down to her wrist, palm, run down the sink basin towards the drain.  
  
She was dying, she thought. This is dying.  
  
And then it passed, just as quickly as it had come. Breathing became easier, her mind became more focused. She was more aware than before of the pain resonating up and down the length of her arm because of her self-inflicted injury. She grabbed another hand towel from the bathroom closet, folding it up and pressing it hard against the wound; the blood flow seemed to be tapering off. She still felt a bit woozy, but she felt more real now. Solid. Grounded.  
  
She managed to bandage up the wound as much as possible, taping three small, cotton pads to her skin. She worried about how long the bandages would last until they'd become useless and blood-soaked. She'd have to be careful to make sure that none of it got onto her shirt. The last thing that she wanted was to give her mother more reasons to ask questions about why the stains were even there in the first place.  
  
The thought of anyone knowing about what did to herself completely, and quite simply, terrified her.  
  
At the time, she'd imagined all of the terrible things that would come from people finding out. She'd pictured the look on her father's face, heard the sickening crunch of bones as his fist connected with her face. She knew that she wouldn't have been able to explain those sort of bruises away. And her mother would have looked at her, disgusted as always, right before she opened another bottle of bourbon. Her mother would drink and Amanda would know, she'd just  _know_  that it was all her fault.   
  
(always your fault, such a disappointment)  
  
Her classmates would look at her like she was some kind of freak. They'd have known then, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she wasn't normal. That she could and would  _never_  be normal with her. There was something wrong with her; there always had been. Disappointing, everyone would say, shaking their heads. She was always such a disappointment.   
  
She'd pressed her palm flat against her wound through her shirt and the bandages.  
  
No one could know, she had told herself.  
  
There was nothing wrong, she'd seen herself saying. She was fine.  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
From  _Jigsaw_ , p. 107:

> It seems almost impossible that the abuse Young suffered at the hands of her parents, as well as her own self-injuring tendencies, would go unchecked and unnoticed for as long as they did. However, the lack of concern regarding Young's abuse is sadly a long-term example of what is commonly referred to as the bystander effect (or "Genovese syndrome"). It it described as a social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases where individuals do not offer help in an emergency situation when other people are present. It has been found that the probability of help has in the past been thought to be inversely related to the number of bystanders; the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help.
> 
> The term "Genovese syndrome" comes from the famous case of Kitty Genovese, who, in 1964, was brutally raped and murdered while witnesses stood by and did nothing to help. Although the events of the case have been disputed, the point of the matter -- that people will often stand by and do nothing to help even when they know someone is in danger -- remains. How else could one explain the fact that for years the symptoms of Amanda Young's abuse went completely ignored?
> 
> We have seen that neighbors were simply worried about getting involved in a matter that they perceived was none of their business. But why did school officials ignore the signs? Young reportedly often came to school with noticeable bruises, including black eyes. And yet no action was taken to investigate the source of these injuries. According to former Head Principal Laughlin, who gave testimony at the Young Commission, the school was "afraid of making false accusations," along with all the bad publicity.
> 
> But what of Young's cutting? From her medical charts that when she was admitted to Angel of Mercy hospital following a brutal attack from her father, we know that the doctors  _did_  in fact, note that she was self-harming, but this information was strangely -- or perhaps for the better -- not passed on to Mrs. Young. In her charts it's also noted Amanda Young was sent to see the hospital psychiatrist for evaluation, but whatever his conclusions, it is apparent they were not enough to keep Young from being released from the hospital.
> 
> And so thus Young was allowed to continue on down a path a self-destruction that would ultimately lead her to John Kramer . . .

 

\- -

  
  
  
When she was nineteen, she had sex with a girl for the first time.  
  
It was rougher than she expected it to be, which was strange, because she'd always thought of girls are just really soft and gentle and lovely, so when the girl she was kissing nipped at her bottom lip almost hard enough to draw blood, it caught her by surprise. But it wasn't a bad sort of surprise; it was more of, oh, well, that's good then. Because Amanda knew she could fake being soft and lovely and sweet if she needed to.   
  
But she didn't want to. And it was nice to know it wasn't expected of her.  
  
The girl's name was Ivy and she was in Amanda's American Literature class, one of those asinine prerequisite courses that all freshmen were required to take. She'd enrolled in the Biology program at ULCA after a bit of prompting from one of her teachers; she hadn't planned to go to college at all, didn't really see the point, but obviously her Genetics and Biotechnology teacher had thought differently. She'd been reluctant to even apply, but she'd pushed herself to do it anyway --  
  
(why the hell not at least you won't have to go home any more)  
  
\-- and had been more than a little surprised when she'd gotten her acceptance letter. To say that her grades were less than spectacular would have been a huge understatement, and it wasn't as if she had any extra curricular activities to add to her application. But she guessed that maybe the school needed to fulfill their whole "poor and disadvantaged" quota, which is why she'd gotten in.  
  
Not like she minded, though. She didn't care what people thought of her. Usually, anyway.  
  
Ivy sat two seats in from of her and one row across. She had long, dark hair with a shine that Amanda both envied and admired. When Amanda got bored in class, she liked to watch Ivy, who always seemed like she really cared about whatever the teacher was babbling on about on any given day. As if she found it entertaining and was genuinely interested. For her part, Amanda was just looking to get by with the minimum amount of effort required, but she thought it was sort of nice that at least  _someone_  cared. Or at least, cared enough to act like they did.  
  
In class one day they'd been told they'd have to work with a partner on research paper writing assignment that would be due at the end of term and would be a big contributor to their final grade. Amanda had slouched down in her seat as much as possible; she hated being forced to work with people like this. Maybe if she just made herself small enough, no one would notice her and she'd be able to work alone. Like she wanted to. This was college, not grade school; surely they could all do their own work. By themselves.  
  
But Ivy'd just come up to her after class, like it was so easy to do, and said, "Well, do you want to work together?" And what could Amanda have done but say yes; after all, she didn't really have any reason to say no.  
  
"So I guess there's this big party going on at the Alpha Phi house tonight," Ivy said, on an usually chilly day in October, when they were in her dorm room, huddled under blankets and trying to sort through all the books they had in front of them. "Some sort of mid-semester celebration. I was thinking that maybe you wanted to come?"  
  
Amanda turned a page in her book, almost falling asleep from the warmth of the room and the absolute boredom of trying to find a suitable number of references through a stack of books that she hoped she'd never, ever have to read again. Yawning, she said, "I don't do parties."  
  
"Ever?" Ivy seemed almost scandalized.  
  
"I've been to some before," Amanda sighed, with a shrug, dog-earring a page for later. "But I don't like them that much. I'm not interested in dancing with drunken frat boys and jocks and trying not to get felt up or roofied, thanks. I have better things to do with my time."  
  
"So what, then?"  
  
"I don't know what you mean."  
  
Ivy stared at her over the top of her book."What sort of better things do you have to do with your time?"  
  
Amanda shifted restlessly. They hadn't spoken this much in the three weeks that they'd been working together, so she didn't know why Ivy felt the sudden need to interrogate her. She stared down at the book in her hand, but she couldn't concentrate. The words on the pages looked scrambled and unfocused. "I don't know," she said, after a minute, feeling embarrassed that she couldn't actually come up with a decent response. "Just  _things_. Does it matter? I just don't want to fucking go. I don't see any point to those sort of things. They aren't what I consider to be fun."  
  
"So then tell me, Miss Amanda Young," Ivy said, setting her book face down; breaking the spine, Amanda thought, idly. Ivy leaned back onto her hands. "What  _is_  it that you like to do for fun?"  
  
Amanda flushed, annoyed. "Like I said, it doesn't matter," she snapped, not meeting Ivy's gaze, hoping it would deter her from her ridiculous line of questions that she seemed determined to make Amanda answer.  
  
Ivy frowned. "Don't be like that. Come on, I'm just saying, it might do you a bit of good to get out once and a while, you know?"  
  
(no)  
  
"Maybe."   
  
"You're very stubborn," Ivy laughed.  
  
"Yeah, well," Amanda said in a sharper tone than intended, "you're very fucking annoying."  
  
There was a pause, then, and instantly Amanda knew she'd said the wrong thing. Ivy pressed her lips together into a thin line, reaching for her book and pointedly staring down on it. Amanda felt horribly uncomfortable then; she couldn't stand the awkward silence and tension that was filling the room, the silence and tension she'd created. If only she could just  _fucking_  --  
  
(you could learn a thing or two from your stupid cunt of a mother)  
  
\--  _not_  say things.   
  
"Um," she said awkwardly, after a moment, floundering. "I just meant -- "  
  
"What?" Ivy snapped, not looking up.  
  
Amanda swallowed and plowed on. "I mean, I just don't want to go, okay? I'm sorry. I-I shouldn't have said that. It was, um. Wrong."  
  
Another pause. Then Ivy said, finally meeting Amanda's eyes, "Yeah, it was."  
  
(fucking c -- )  
  
"Um, okay. Sorry."  
  
Ivy sighed. "It's fine, really. I'm just on edge right now." She sighed again, shutting her book tossing it to the side. It landed near her desk with a dull, soft  _thud_. Amanda wondered if maybe she was supposed to go now, just quietly excuse herself and make up an explanation as to why she had to go. She felt the word sorry on her tongue, heavy with guilt, and thought maybe she should apologize again.  
  
But then Ivy said, "Well, you're stubborn and I'm annoying. Seems as though we make a good pair."  
  
Amanda forced a small, awkward smile. "Yeah. Lucky me."  
  
And then it happened.   
  
It was so, so unlike in the movies, was the first that Amanda thought, when Ivy, with a half-smile, suddenly moved forward, bridging the gap between them and pressing her mouth full against Amanda's. There was no swell of music, no fireworks, no satisfaction in knowing that yes, this was how things were meant to go all along. It was nice, but it felt empty somehow. Lacking. Like she could just be anyone and it would still just be the same old kiss.  
  
Ivy must have noticed that there was something wrong, because she pulled back a moment later, frowning. "What? Don't you want this?"  
  
Amanda didn't know how to answer that.  
  
(yes)  
  
"I've seen you looking at me," Ivy told her.   
  
"I look at lots of people," Amanda said.  
  
Ivy grinned then. "Yes. But not the way you look at me."  
  
She kissed Amanda again and it felt a little better this time, but maybe it was because she'd moved in a bit closer and her hands were in Amanda's hair, gripping the back of her head and pulling her in. Ivy's tongue brushed against her lower lip and for a fleeting, wild second, Amanda thought that her father was going to burst into the room and see her like this.   
  
(dirty, wrong)  
  
Ivy must have sensed her hesitation, must have felt Amanda stiffen under her touch, because she pulled away from Amanda's mouth and leaned over to press a kiss against her ear, the space below it. "Don't be afraid," she said, her breath warm against Amanda's skin. It made her shiver; she felt a hot lick of desire cutting across her belly. Like a flame.  
  
And, because she felt like being honest, she said, "I . . . I've never done this before."  
  
"It's okay; I have," Ivy murmured, pressing kisses along the slope of Amanda's neck, dropping her hand down and working it slowly up her shirt. Amanda flinched as cool fingers met her skin and then giggled nervously, suddenly self-conscious. She felt Ivy's lips curve up into a grin.   
  
And she should have been paying attention, but she wasn't, especially when they moved from the floor up to Ivy's bed. Amanda had fumbled for a few awkward moments with Ivy's bra, flushing, before Ivy had just laughed and unclasped it herself. She'd tugged off her shirt, too, and had taken Amanda's hands in her own, bringing them up to her breasts, thumbs brushing against her nipples. Amanda leaned forward and kissed the hollow space at the base of Ivy's throat, before kissing a trail further down, between her breasts. She circled a nipple with her tongue, sucked on it gently, liked the way Ivy knit her fingers into Amanda's top, pulling her in closer.  
  
And because she wasn't really paying attention, was more caught up in a haze of lust, she didn't realize until after she'd let Ivy tug off her shirt what it meant. She'd forgotten, momentarily, about the scars, about the white and red lines that made a criss-cross like pattern against her skin. She'd forgotten, for a second, that she wasn't just  _some girl_ , like Ivy probably thought she was, that she was damaged in more ways than one.  
  
She felt Ivy stiffen against her, paused. Then, a hand on her arm, and a "Amanda, what are -- "  
  
Amanda yanked back away from Ivy's grasp, ready to grab her things and run.  
  
"Hey, it's all right," Ivy said, completely nonchalant, as if she'd seen this sort of thing every day. As if she didn't think Amanda was some sort of sick freak who it was best to avoid at all costs. She reached out and stroked up and down the length of Amanda's arm, fingers running over the scars there, not even hesitating when they traced over cuts that had been done recently, only a day old.  
  
It felt strange, to be touched in such a way. So open and exposed. Amanda was torn between wanting it to go on for forever and wanting it to just stop; it made her feel sick and giddy all at once. She stared down at Ivy, wondered what would happen if she just climbed out of bed right now. Pretend like none of this ever happened, dropped out of class, avoided everyone and everything for the rest of the semester.   
  
She couldn't take this. It was too much.  
  
"Don't worry," Ivy said, as if sensing her uncertainty. Her fear. "I don't mind. About these, I mean," she clarified, tracing over a fresh cut with a single slender finger. "No one's perfect. Sometimes you just have to get the bad out of you."  
  
"Is that what it's about?" Amanda asked, surprised and suddenly curious. Was it true, what Ivy was saying? She'd always tried to explain why she did it, always tried to rationalize the cutting away, but no matter what, she'd never been able to set aside the notion that it was wrong. Disgusting. That she was fucked up not just for doing it, but for  _liking_  it. For enjoying it and wanting to do it again and again until she couldn't see straight.  
  
But now Ivy was acting like it was okay, like it was no big deal. As if she'd seen it a thousand times before.  
  
(such a fucking  _liar_ )   
  
Ivy shrugged, dropped her hand back down to Amanda's hip, letting it settle there. "I don't know. Maybe."   
  
Amanda kissed her then, harder than she could ever remember kissing someone. It wasn't very gentle, just loads of teeth and tongue, not skilled or nice at all, but Ivy didn't seem to mind. She nipped at Amanda's bottom lip, hard enough to draw blood; Amanda could taste it in her mouth, thick and coppery --  
  
(on her bed, face down, hand between her thighs)  
  
(standing at the sink, razor in hand)  
  
\-- and she pressed a knee up and between Ivy's legs, pleased at the groan the action elicited. She'd had sex with guys lots of times; there weren't any surprises left in that category. But she'd never had sex with a girl before, had never even  _kissed_ , a girl, not after Laura. She knew, in some deep, secret part of her brain, that what she was doing was wrong, but she couldn't stop herself. It felt, almost, as if her body had gained a mind of its own and she knew without really  _knowing_ , what to do. Where to touch. How to move her fingers, the right way to twist and flick her tongue.  
  
Ivy wasn't like a boy. Boys had an innately selfish quality to them, Amanda knew; they tangled their fingers in her hair, gripped the back of her head, pushed themselves further, harder into her mouth. Even when they were inside of her, it was all about  _them_ , just grunting and thrusting away without any regard for anyone but themselves. But girls, Amanda thought (even though she'd just had sex with this  _one_ ), it was different. When Ivy curled her fingers in Amanda's hair, it was gentle, urgent. Not rough and demanding. It felt more like things were about  _them_  instead of about her.  
  
It was nice. Different, but in a good way. It wasn't like she'd suddenly become some fucking queer exclusively, just because of it, but she knew, then, that she didn't just want boys either. They had their uses, of course, and they could be nice, when they wanted to be. But girls were sweeter. Fuller. They took and gave in equal amounts. And there were some things that girls were just  _better_  at, Amanda thought, throwing back her head with a stifled groan when Ivy pressed her tongue flat against Amanda's clit.  
  
It was -- it was just  _nice_.  
  
Afterwards, when Amanda was shrugging on her coat and Ivy was still lying in bed, smoking a cigarette and looking so much like a fucking cliche that it was embarrassing, she said, because she thought she should say  _something_ , "Well, thanks."  
  
"You don't need to thank me for sex, Amanda." Ivy laughed, sounding more amused than annoyed, blowing smoke towards the ceiling. "When are you going to come over again?"  
  
She shrugged. "Tomorrow, I guess. If you want me to. Are you still going to that party?"  
  
Another exhalation of smoke. "Probably. You still going to sit home like a loser?"  
  
Amanda gripped her wrist, dug her nails into her skin. Didn't answer. after a moment, Ivy looked over and whatever she saw on Amanda's face, standing there in the doorway awkwardly, she must have found amusing, because she laughed and reached an arm out to Amanda, gesturing her to come back to bed.  
  
"Come here, Mandy," she said, grinning around her cigarette, the tip of it smouldering gold-red in the semi-darkness of the dorm room.   
  
Amanda did as she was told, stripping her coat back off and striding across the room and moving until she was atop Ivy, one knee on each side of her stomach, straddling her. Ivy's grin widened and she reached over and stubbed her half-smoked cigarette out in the ashtray on her nightstand, taking Amanda's hands and guiding them downwards, until her palms covered her breasts. Amanda felt the nipples grow hard under her hands and she bit down on her lower lip, rocking her hips forward slightly, eliciting a moan from Ivy, who squirmed a bit beneath her, arching up.   
  
"Please," Ivy said, through a stifled moan, and Amanda shook her head once before sliding a hand down between them, half-heartedly working her fingers between Ivy's thighs, watching the way her eyes fluttered closed, the way she threw her head back against the pillow, biting down on her bottom lip as if she was in pain.   
  
Perhaps, Amanda thought, in a way she was, and felt herself get suddenly and unexpectedly wet again at the thought.   
  
She didn't know what she enjoyed more; the idea of pain or the fact that she was the cause of it.  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
Once, Ivy'd said, "Cut yourself for me."  
  
They'd been fucking on a regular basis since midterms and once they'd moved forward from the awkward roughness mixed with gentle hesitation that came from learning what they each did and didn't like, they'd started making demands. Ivy, more so than Amanda, but Amanda didn't mind giving -- so long as she was allowed to take. That was her favorite part of this whole little game that they were playing, the taking. In class they were nothing but acquaintances; in the world outside of school, nothing more than strangers. But everything changed when they were alone, when she'd leave Ivy shaken and breathless. Desperate for more.  
  
(you keep my secret, i'll keep yours)  
  
And now Ivy was demanding blood.  
  
"No," Amanda said, pulling away.   
  
Ivy narrowed her eyes. She tightened her grip on Amanda's wrist, her nails leaving little crescent-shaped marks that would well up with blood the moment she took her hand away. "No. Why? You do it all the fucking time anyway. You'll do it if I say you'll do it. I want you to cut yourself in front of me. I want you to show me how to do it so I can see the look on your face."  
  
She couldn't say that the thought of cutting in front of someone else filled her with fear and shame so paralyzing that she could barely breathe. She couldn't say that, not to Ivy. Not to anyone. Instead, she grit her teeth and said, "Fuck you."  
  
A slap, then, and it took Amanda a moment to realize that Ivy'd struck her. She brought her hand up to her cheek, feeling the sting, and thought about how the mark would turn from white to red to pink. She wondered what color it was now, even as she lunged forward and pinned Ivy to bed, one hand around her throat, the other in her hair.  
  
Ivy coughed and sputtered, looking up at her with wide, unreadable eyes. As Amanda pressed down a bit harder, Ivy's lips turned up into a smirk.  
  
"Bitch," she said.  
  
Amanda was rough, then, rougher than she'd ever been before. She reached up underneath Ivy's skirt, yanking down her underwear so hard that it almost just tore apart. She pushed two fingers into Ivy, thrusting in and out without any real finesse; she just wanted to  _fuck_  Ivy; in the back of her mind, she knew there was a difference between fucking and  _fucking_ , and this was rough and blurry and full of so much anger that had no root but seemed to stretch on for miles.  
  
Ivy fought against her, a little, her hands on Amanda's shoulders, twisting beneath Amanda on the bed, but she couldn't even really think about that. All she could see in her mind was red, like anger, blood, just spilling out of her, and all she wanted to do was for Ivy to fucking  _cry_  already. Her wrist and arm were sore from the awkward position; it felt like everything was just taking so long and she didn't know if Ivy was going to come or push her off or  _what_.  
  
But then Ivy  _did_  come, with a strangled cry, hips jerking up against Amanda's fingers.  
  
And then it was just . . .  _oh_. Over, done. Well, that's it then. Silence, except for both of their labored breaths. Amanda pulled her fingers out of Ivy, wiping them on the sheets. She sat back on her knees, watching Ivy, who sighed and then opened her eyes, brushing her sweaty bangs back from her forehead and grinning at Amanda.  
  
"Well, that was fun, wasn't it?"  
  
"What?" Amanda was confused. She felt disoriented, as if the past few minutes had just been a dream and she'd only just woken up.   
  
Ivy sighed again and pushed herself up a bit into a sitting position. " _That_ ," she said, with emphasis, like it was obvious. "Wasn't it exciting? You looked so angry, I thought for a minute that you were really going to hurt me." She laughed, silverly and light. "But then you just --  _wow_. That was so hot. I don't remember ever coming that hard before."  
  
Amanda shook her head. "I -- I don't understand."  
  
"Angry sex," Ivy said, in a patently slow voice as if speaking to a child. "Which is what we just had. I've been thinking about it for a while now, but I wasn't sure . . . Well, I didn't know how to make you angry. You're always just so -- so  _placid_. Nothing ever gets a reaction out of you. But the cutting," she said. "Oh, that  _did_  get a reaction."  
  
"Right." Amanda frowned.  
  
Had it all just been an act, then? The bitchy look on Ivy's face, the coldness in her eyes and voice. The way she'd flinched when Amanda's pushed her down against the mattress, her hands pushing at Amanda's shoulders. Her soft, strangled cries, the jerking and twisting of her hips. None of it had been real. Well,  _that_  had been real. But the fear hadn't been. There'd been no real anxiety or malice or anything like that. It was all just an act.  
  
(remember the  _red_ )  
  
But it had all been real to her. Amanda still felt on edge, like that anger was still just bubbling inside her, ready to spill over. Her heart was racing; she felt dizzy. Right now, in Ivy's bed, she felt completely out of place for the first time ever. For moment, when her fingers were wrapped around Ivy's neck, she had felt that same sort of disconnection that she only got when she cut. It had been more as if she'd been watching the events unfold instead of actually taking part in them.  
  
And she'd  _wanted_  to hurt Ivy. Make her cry. Make her bleed. Had wanted to feel that same rush of power that she'd felt on that first night they'd slept together, when she'd straddled Ivy's hips on the bed and made her beg for Amanda to let her come. She'd felt so  _angry_ , just out of nowhere, like a sudden spark in her lungs. Even now she could feel it, those same spark pangs dancing across her collarbone. Threatening to undo her completely. She'd held back, but she knew, she just  _knew_  she'd could have gone farther. Could have pressed down until she'd squeezed all the air out of Ivy's lungs completely, until she'd grown limp and lifeless.  
  
(remember max, oh, eyes blank, staring up at that endless sky, oh)  
  
Ivy had began to trace little circles on Amanda's thigh, over her jeans. Amanda tried to steady herself. Breathe in, breathe out. Repeat. Don't think. Just do it. In out, in out. She swallowed, hard, trying unsuccessfully to rid herself of the lump that had formed in her throat. Breathe. Okay. You're fine. Everything's going to be okay. She is fine. She is absolutely all right.  
  
(come on, we'll fix things)  
  
"You all right?" Ivy asked, sitting up the rest of the way and leaning forward to press a soft kiss to Amanda's lips.   
  
(no)  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Sorry, you know, that I said those things." Another kiss, this time to the corner of her mouth. "But I wanted it to be spontaneous, you know? I'm sorry if I upset you. I thought it would be fun. It was fun, wasn't it Mandy?" The last bit with punctuated by another kiss to her lips, but this time it was fuller, harder. Amanda found herself compelled to kiss back.  
  
"I could have hurt you," she said, as Ivy began to undo the buttons on her blouse.  
  
Ivy smiled and shook her head. "No, you couldn't've. You wouldn't have."  
  
It was her sincerity, her blind assurance that made everything hurt that much more. But Amanda let herself be kissed, she let Ivy slide off her shirt, undo her bra. Let herself be pushed back down onto the mattress, her hands tangling in Ivy's hair, back arching. She tried so very hard not to think about the sex they'd just had, the heavy danger, the hot anger, the uncertainty and fear that mixed and met in her stomach, twisting it into knots. And it almost --  
  
(liar)  
  
\-- sort of worked.  
  
Things were softer this time. Gentler. Ivy's tongue slid along the inside of Amanda's thigh, her hand up higher, fingers toying with a nipple and for a moment, when she pressed a kiss to the space where Amanda's hip and thigh met, it almost felt like she meant it. Like somehow things had become more than just casual sex after their school work was finished, like maybe somehow something more had blossomed due to them trying so hard to make sure nothing would.   
  
And it was just so  _strange_  how she'd just been so angry, how she'd been only a breath away from wanting Ivy broken and bloody, to feeling as if she was going to explode, both from Ivy's tongue against her clit and whatever it was that was wrapped around her heart, squeezing it too tight. She didn't understand how she could simply slide from one extreme to the other. She thought about that time her mother had taken her to an amusement park outside their house, one of those days before her father got really bad. Maybe it was just because she was little, but she'd loved the roller coasters the best. Her mother had hated them, of course, but it was the rush, the thrill, basis indeterminable, that Amanda had liked the most. The sudden drop, from a place so high up. Right now, she felt like that. Only, it had happened in reverse. She'd shot straight from low to high. Like she'd just sailed somewhere up into the clouds, above everyone and everything else.  
  
It  _almost_  felt like love, she thought.   
  
(almost)  
  
Later, after she'd come, twice, Ivy had crawled back up, pressing lazy, sloppy kisses along Amanda's shoulders and neck. Amanda cupped Ivy's face in her hand, pulled her up and kissed her hard on the mouth; she wanted to taste herself. Ivy grinned into the kiss, her body settling flush on top of Amanda's. They'd done this dozens of times before, but it felt  _different_  somehow, now. Amanda didn't understand why.  
  
"We'll have to do extra work the rest of this week," Ivy said, after a minute, resting her head in the crook of Amanda's neck.   
  
Amanda combed her fingers through Ivy's hair, looked at the stack of books and papers that had gone untouched. From the very moment she'd walked into Ivy's room and set her things down on the desk, Ivy had grabbed her by the shirt and pulled her into bed. They'd kissed until it felt like their lips were bruised. And then Ivy had pulled away, looked Amanda square in the face, and asked her to cut herself.  
  
It felt like a scene from a thousand years ago, or maybe not even real at all. Like she'd just dreamed the entire encounter. Even now, only half an hour later, the whole thing was fuzzy in her brain, like when she fell asleep during class and only half-remembered things. Ivy seemed to have forgotten all about it, dozing lightly on top of Amanda, her breathing low and shallow. Warm against Amanda's slowly cooling skin.  
  
Amanda kissed the top of Ivy's head and closed her eyes, feeling drowsy from the sex and earlier anger.  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
From  _Fatal Attraction: Dating America's Most Notorious Serial Killer_ , by George Parechanian (published in the August 2011, issue of  _GQ_ ):

> Ivy Patterson has lived in the neat Boston suburb of Framingham for eight years, and outwardly she is a typical New England girl: long, wavy brown hair, a crisp white shirt with her intitals monogrammed on the right breast in navy thread, her black slacks perfectly pleated and pressed. She drives a hybrid and works at a local school as a middle-school English honors teacher. Her girlfriend is fairly high-profile business woman who works out of Boston and rides the T for her daily commute back and forth from the city. But Ms. Patterson is still a Los Angeles girl at heart, and sitting here on the back porch, sipping iced teas in the warm summer sun, I can hear a twinge of accent and watch at she rubs suntan lotion on her arms, so that they tan and don't burn, or so she tells me, with a knowing smile. 
> 
> However idyllic her life may seem now, however, it is clouded by a dark past. For most of us, the memory of the notorious Jigsaw Killer is still fresh in our minds. Much focus has been paid attention on the man behind the name, Mr. John Kramer, who is believed to have murdered at approximately twenty people in a span of only three to four years, but the media has also focused on a woman known as Amanda Young, who was the late John Kramer's professed "apprentice."
> 
> Unlike John Kramer, next to nothing is known about Amanda Young's personal life prior to becoming a co-conspirator in the Jigsaw killings, but today I sat down to talk to Ms. Patterson to talk about that very person. Ms. Patterson, a graduate of UCLA, was a friend and classmate of Young's. She was also, she tells me, Young's lover.
> 
> "Oh, well, of course there was something off about her," Ivy Patterson tells me, lighting a second Virginia Slim a moment after stubbing out her first. "I mean, we've all read about her, this isn't exactly news. But she wasn't as bad as the press wants you to believe. That is to say, I mean, she was normal, too. Sure, she had some problems, but who doesn't, really? It's not like she was some sort of psycho. When I say that there was something off about her, I mean that she wasn't exactly all right, wasn't completely normal, but if you'd known her, you wouldn't have thought she'd be capable of," she trails off then, with a shrug. "You know, something like that."
> 
> When I ask her to explain, she waves me off. "You know, she was a quiet girl. Pretty sweet, actually, very polite. I've read stuff, now, about people like her; apparently there's two extremes: the sweet and silent type or the loud and brash type. Very in-your-face. She wasn't like that. She was angry, yes, but she kept it hidden. I remember, once," she exhales a mouthful of smoke with a laugh, "I described her as being placid. Like a lake, you know? Calm on the surface, but you knew there was something lurking underneath."
> 
> "I liked her fine enough, but I was a little scared of her, sometimes," she admits, after a moment's pause. "Sometimes she'd just  _look_  at you and it felt like she was staring straight into your soul. You know what I mean? She had a look -- I can't really describe it. It was dark. The kind of look that would make you want to stay away from someone. But she was also," she smiles, remembering, "completely irresistible. You know the sort. Maybe it's because she was sort of untouchable; you knew she wouldn't ever really belong to anyone. You knew she wouldn't ever really  _love_  anyone. She didn't say so, but I just  _knew_  it. I don't think she could have belonged to someone, could have loved someone, even if she'd wanted to."
> 
> Invariably, the conversation swings around to the more intimate aspects of their relationship.
> 
> Ivy smirks at me and grinds out her cigarette while lighting up a third. "Well, of course, that's what everyone wants to know, isn't it? What she was like in bed. She gave me killer orgasms, if you'll excuse the horrible pun." We both laugh, she reaches for her drink, a vodka tonic, takes a small sip of it. Setting it down on the table, her finger circles the rim while she gazes up at the bright, summer blue sky.
> 
> "Amanda wasn't very experienced, but she was a fast learner. As far as I know, she'd never even kissed a girl before me. Our first time, she sort of straddled the line between eagerness and hesitancy, half-wanting it, half-afraid of what that wanting really meant. But I knew she was interested in me. We had this class, right, Intro to American English, one of those bullshit courses that everyone has to take. I remember she sat a row across from me and I could just  _feel_  her eyes on me. Once I looked back; our eyes met and she didn't flush or turn away, she just kept on staring. It sounds stupid to say it out loud, but at the time, I remember thinking it was like her saying to me: I've noticed you, and I'm not scared of that. Ridiculous, really. But I've always remembered it."
> 
> "I know that people must think that because she is -- or, sorry,  _was_  -- a murderer, she must have been like, some sort of crazy sexual deviant." She laughs again and finishes off her drink before standing up. Stretching, she goes to the deck railing and leans on it. Her backyard is picturesque, with its neatly trimmed grass and little garden. Near the back, a small, gray gazebo stands silent and cool. It looks like something out of a  _Home & Country_ issue.
> 
> From where we're sitting, we can just barely hear the roar of traffic from the interstate a couple of blocks over. Ivy turns to me, jerks her head in the direction of the interstate. "It sounds a bit like the ocean, doesn't it?" she asks me. "Sometimes I forget that it  _isn't_. You know, when I was younger, I used to go to the beach every day in summer. Now I go shopping at Cape Cod."
> 
> She taps the end of her cigarette with a slender finger. "Yeah, she was all right," she says, after a moment. "I kind of liked that she was so -- I don't know how to describe it. Eager to please, I guess. Probably because she was so repressed or whatever the hell. Like I said, I think I was probably her first girl. Anyway," she smiles, more to herself than me. "She liked. I liked it. We had fun. I don't think she was any more unusual than any of my other lovers, before or after. Truthfully, she was just rather plain. Plain and ordinary."
> 
> "Although," she pauses, thinking. "I do remember she used to cut herself. I never  _saw_  her do it, but I saw the scars. But that's old news, isn't it? I think everyone knows that by now. At the time, I didn't think anything of it. I mean, what did I care, right? I was getting laid. And lots of people are or have been cutters -- I knew one in high school, it didn't seem so out of the ordinary to me. I know that she -- she didn't like it. That I knew, I mean. She acted like it was no big deal, but I know it bothered her. She always kept her arms and legs covered up, even around me, even though I already knew." A shrug. "Maybe she was ashamed, I don't know."
> 
> "When I heard about what happened, you know, back in Los Angeles, I honestly couldn't believe it. I told myself that it had to be another Amanda Young. Common name, right? But then they put up her mugshot on the news and I instantly recognized her. Even drugged out, she still had that cold, hard look in her eyes -- you know? It was only later that I went back and did a bit of research, saw that she'd been one of the first surviving victims. Who would have thought, you know? It could have been anyone."
> 
> She crushes out her third cigarette with a frown, shaking her head. "That's the thing that gets me," she says, rubbing at her temple. "That it was  _her_. Why Amanda, you know? Of all the gin joints in all the world . . . "

 

\- -

  
  
  
Ivy said, "We can't see each other any more." Just like that, when they were standing in line for coffee.  
  
And that was it. So fucking easy.  
  
(shouldn't have been at all surprised)  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
She never expected to end up in prison, but then again, who did?  
  
After Ivy, she mostly drifted around from one person to the next, never staying with them long enough for either party to get attached. She had let her guard down with Ivy just like she'd let it down with Allen; she should have known that in the end, it didn't matter what you did or who you tried to be -- in the end, everyone saw you for what you really were. And they realized they didn't want to be with that kind of person.   
  
Her father had always said there was something wrong with her. Her mother had never disagreed. Amanda, for her part, had thought that maybe he was incorrect with his assessment, that it had just been the booze and anger talking. But after Ivy, even after Allen, she began to realize that maybe her father had been right all along. And she realized, there wasn't any point in trying or pretending; she didn't really care about anyone else. There were people she liked, but none that she loved, and she knew that she probably should have been upset about that fact, but the honest truth was that she wasn't. Why bother with caring? No one else cared. In the end, it wouldn't matter how much you  _cared_ , it just mattered that you simply weren't good enough.  
  
One of her best nights was with a first year medical student; long, dark hair, brown eyes, light olive-colored skin. She didn't tell Amanda her name when asked, simply flashed a smile that showed too much teeth and pressed Amanda back against the bathroom wall with a kiss. She'd dropped to her knees, yanking Amanda's jeans down in the process, and had made her come so quick and hard that it was almost embarrassing. Going back to her room had been even better; the girl had let herself be tied up to the bed, something Amanda would have never even considered doing before now. In the morning, the girl had left with a kiss and a wink and the empty promise that they'd see each other around some time.  
  
She liked getting drunk and she hated going out, but at least going out meant that she didn't have to sit in her room by herself, nursing a bottle of vodka and feeling like a complete loser.  
  
Sometimes she went to parties, but she liked raves better; there was less of a chance of bumping into someone she knew there. She hated being recognized when she was drunk and sloppy. It made her feel out of place and embarrassed, as if they'd just caught her doing something horrible that she wasn't meant to be doing.  
  
At the bar, in clubs, boys would shout in her ear, "Come back to mine."  
  
If they could keep up with her with shots, then she would. If not, well, it wasn't as if there were other boys --  
  
(and girls)  
  
\-- who'd be up for the challenge.   
  
Mostly she didn't keep them around for more than a night. No point in getting attached to someone, even if was only for a couple of days. These kind of things were always unbalanced anyway; someone was always a bit more eager, someone was always a bit more needy, someone was always a bit more determined to make this one night stand into something more than it was. She thought, she may as well let them down right at the start, that way they wouldn't want to be close to her. She made a point of leaving almost as soon as she'd come, tugging on her clothes and mumbling some lame excuse about how she had to be somewhere the next morning.  
  
There were a few that she liked more than the others. Morgan, a law student, who took her time, wrapping her tie around Amanda's eyes like a blindfold, teasing her until she was absolutely bursting with want. Morgan had stuck around for a two whole weeks; they'd get drunk at clubs and then stumble home at two-thirty in the morning and fuck until they fell asleep. A fortnight later and Amanda was dressed and out the door as soon as Morgan passed out face down on her duvet.  
  
Morgan had things to do. Tests to study for, case studies to read. She didn't have time to waste on Amanda -- and Amanda didn't want her to. Morgan was going places. She was going to be someone. She was going to be all of the things that Amanda couldn't, and she knew that it would be selfish to hold her back. Just because she herself hadn't ever done anything with her life, didn't give her the right to take that away from anyone else. And she knew that would be exactly what would happen if she stuck around.  
  
She didn't leave a note, but Morgan must have gotten the message anyway. Amanda didn't see her again after that.  
  
The two other people she liked best were boys: Dan and Peter. Peter was a bit more bookish than she usually liked them, but he had jet black hair and enchanting blue eyes. And when he was drunk, he recited lines from Shakespeare's sonnets, which was intriguing and sort of wonderful. He was also simultaneously the more vanilla and roughest sex she'd ever had, a fact that was both thrilling and confusing all at once; it was why she kept him around for as long as her did.  
  
Eventually, though, she left him too, after a little more than a week. She told herself that it was because everything had just become so routine so soon, but really, it was because she'd seen another girl coming out of his apartment one evening. Amanda Young was second to no one; obviously he didn't think she was a good enough fuck, so why even bother sticking around? His rejection without rejection put a sour taste in her mouth and she didn't go out again until a full week later.  
  
She'd taken an X-acto knife to her thighs and cut until there was so much blood she couldn't see the skin underneath. She felt better then. And then she'd gone and met Dan, who didn't ask about the blood or scars or the whiskey on her breath and fucked her in the backseat of his car with a wolfish grin; it reminded her, vaguely, of the first Peter, the one she'd known in high school. As Dan came, she wondered where high school Peter was right now.  
  
Probably married and working in some sort of business firm, all dressed up with nowhere to go. Pleated navy pants and a matching jacket, with a crisp, white dress shirt, and black leather shoes that had been buffed so nicely that you could see your reflection in them. Slicked back hair and a freshly shaven face. Ready to take on the fucking world, while confirming nicely to his nine to five workday.  
  
"Hey," Dan panted, zipping his fly back up and looking at her with an expression that almost could have been genuine concern, if he hadn't just come inside her two minutes earlier. "You cool?"   
  
She reached for her cigarettes; a bad habit she'd picked up. "Yeah," she said, flicking on the lighter and inhaling sharply. "I'm cool."  
  
He was the one she kept around for the longest. One month, three weeks, two days, and eight hours, but it wasn't like she was keeping count. She remembers the exact moment when she realized that this just going to work, when he took a swig of vodka straight from the bottle and called her Mandy. Other people had called her Mandy before, but this, this was different. It sounded just like how her father used to say it: not lovingly at all, more of a mocking sort of nickname. A name that was supposed to be sweet but was really lined with malice. Anger.   
  
Maybe he meant it that way and maybe he didn't, but two minutes later she was in the elevator heading down to the lobby. She hadn't even told him why she was going --  
  
(can't explain it)  
  
\-- or when she'd be back --  
  
(never)  
  
\-- and really, she couldn't even give a fuck if he managed to figure it out on his own or not. All she knew was that if she'd spent even one more second with him, she'd want to pull out the small kit she hid underneath her bed -- not like anyone was even around to find it -- and just cut until she couldn't see straight.   
  
She spent the next couple of days sitting at home and getting blind drunk. And then she went out. If she'd known, then, that going out that evening was going to end in her arrest, she would have stayed at home and watched shitty sitcom re-runs until she fell asleep. It wasn't like she needed to go out every night; it was just that she was bored. But she would have endured that, if she'd known what was going to happen. But she wasn't really thinking as she dressed for the evening, she was mostly thinking about what club she could go to where people would ask the fewest questions.   
  
She hailed a cab, went to a place called  _Silver_  right on the edge of the city.  
  
And that was when the trouble started.  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
She squinted as the camera's light flashed, bright white and blinding. Her eyes were swimming, little flashes going off in front of them. She felt the cool metal chain around her neck, the sides of the sign pressing into her palms, and yet it still seemed so wholly unreal. It felt like being a dream, where everything happened too fast for you to pay attention, where the most improbably things happened without any explanation at all. The number on the sign, white on black, read: 803 746 395.   
  
Just a dream. It had to be. Her jaw ached something awful from where she'd been hit with the butt-end of a flashlight. It felt broken. She gritted her teeth, wincing. Not broken after all, but still incredibly painful. She couldn't remember who'd hit her or even why. She wasn't even completely sure why or where she was now. Everything was just moving too fast. One second she'd been outside a club kissing her newest one night stand, the next second there had been sirens and lights and yelling. Lots of yelling. The very thought of it now made her head ache.  
  
"Turn to the left, please."  
  
(oh fuck)  
  
There was a man speaking to her, but she couldn't see him. He was standing behind the camera, in the shadows. Turning, she could see the brief outline of his body. The the click and snap of her picture being taken; this time the light from the flash wasn't quite so sudden and blinding. A turn to the right and then another picture. One, two, three. It felt so surreal.  
  
(must be a dream)  
  
A policeman led her out of the room when she was finished; staring down at her hands, she saw that her fingertips were black with ink. She couldn't remember when she'd given a set of fingerprints. Must have been before the picture taking. But after she'd gotten hit with a flashlight. Everything was so fucked up; she tried to think about the big black memory gap in between, but she couldn't. Surely she hadn't had that much to drink. She would have remembered. But it  _felt_  like she was drunk, almost, with the way the ground seemed to be uneven beneath her feet and the way her head was spinning.  
  
"Come on," a man said gruffly, beside her, gripping her arm and pulling her down a hallway.   
  
There was a row of cells, the pale yellow paint peeling from the metal bars; with so many people inside, the conversation was just above a dull roar. Better than shouting, but not by much. She kept her eyes half-closed, still trying to adjust to the brightness of the fluorescent lights lining the ceiling above. Near a cell in the back the man stopped, let go of her arm; she stared into the cell, with its dull, cement ceilings a little window on the back wall, high above the wooden bench that ran along the length of the inner walls.  
  
The reality of the situation hit her almost like a physical punch. Prison.  
  
(how)  
  
She was pushed into the cell, the door slamming shut behind her.   
  
Three minutes later, the guy she'd been with earlier that evening was escorted into the cell as well. She stared up at him from the bench, hugging herself. Wordlessly, he sat down next to her, putting his head in his hands. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see little specks of blood on his hands. Dark maroon, they looked more like paint smudges than blood.  
  
"Why're we here?" she asked, at last.  
  
He didn't look up. "They found stuff on me. Smack. It isn't going to be good."  
  
She shook her head, confused. "But I was fucking  _clean_  I don't do that shit and I certainly wouldn't be dealing it. So why the fuck am I in here with you?"  
  
"I don't know," he said, with a small shrug, sighing and leaning back in his seat, eyes closed. "Why don't you talk to the fucking cop that arrested us?"


	4. Chapter 4

From  _Jigsaw_ , p.130:

> One of the most important events of Amanda Young's life is her arrest on October 13th in 1997. Her official police report lists both possession of heroin and resisting arrest as her two violations. Of course, we now know that Amanda's was falsely accused and imprisoned due to this drug charge; at the time, the LAPD was dealing with a surge of dealers in Young's neighborhood and pressure was on to make arrests. The late officer Eric Matthews, who is also listed as one of Jigsaw's victims, had gained prestige among his fellow officers, known for being fearless and for making big arrests. However, most of his convictions were predicated on the fact that he planted evidence on the people he arrested and charge. Amanda Young was one of the first, though certainly not the last person to play victim to Matthews' corruption.  
>   
> Prison proved to be quite difficult for Young. After a quick trial, she was sentenced to seven years for drug possession (the resisting arrest charge was dropped before the trial) at a prison in Chowchilla, California. Though Young had no prior offenses and was not considered particularly violent or dangerous, she was assigned to the medium security ward of the prison, where she came in contact with a number of criminals who were.  
>   
> According to prison reports, Young got herself into trouble early on in her sentence, when she had an unfortunate run-in with one of the prisons's more violent gangs. As to what actually started the fight that began outside in the prison yard, one can only guess at, but Young did not fare well in it. Though she managed to give one of her attackers a concussion by bashing their head against a wall, she ended up in the hospital ward with two black eyes, a split lip, a broken nose, and several broken ribs, along with other small cuts and bruises. She spent approximately two weeks recovering before being returned to the general population, though she maintained a split lip; prison hospital documents show that Young would nervously pick at or lick the wound healing over her mouth, which allowed it to become infected and thus eventually scar over, another week later.  
>   
> It seems Young kept her head down after that -- or at least, tried to -- as the only other note in Amanda Young's prison file is that she received a week in solitary confinement for what was deemed "actions meant to provoke violence." However, there seems to be no indication that Young was ever involved in another prison fight or riot, so this event remains something of a mystery.  
>   
> We also know that at some point in time Young, in a horribly ironic twist, became addicted to heroin while in prison, the very thing which she was convicted for being in possession of. She undoubtedly managed to make some friends within prison walls in order to procure her weekly -- sometimes daily -- fix, though no one has ever come forward with knowledge of knowing Young in prison, inmates and staff alike.  
>   
> So it seems as though most of Amanda's prison life, much like her childhood, allows for only loose speculation. Sally Treble, one of the guards from Young's cell block, did comment once on Young's demeanor though, in an interview for  _Time_  (August 21, 2006):
> 
> "She kept to herself mostly, always very quiet when she was in her cell and hardly ever engaging in any sort of conversation or exchange with the other prisoners. But it went both ways -- Amanda didn't just stay from other people, they also stayed away from her. She was smaller than most of them, but she had a look about her that made people skirt past her when they saw her in the yard or cafeteria. She had mean eyes. It was intimidating. She wasn't one of those girls that went around causing trouble, but you knew -- you knew there was something beneath the surface.   
>   
> I can't tell you what it is. Was. I don't think anyone could."

 

\- -

  
  
  
Prison felt like being back at home.  
  
The worst was when she got into a fight with a couple of girls from Block D. It wasn't like she was looking for a fight, but when one of the girls had pushed her, she'd pushed back. That had been her first mistake. Her second mistake was giving that girl a black eye. Her third mistake was in thinking that she could take on that girl  _and_  her two friends all at once. Eventually the guards broke the whole thing up, but by that time she'd been taught her lesson. She'd managed to smack one of the other girls' heads against a wall during the ensuing struggle, but that was before she'd been kicked so hard a few of her ribs broke. She'd almost wanted to throw up when she'd heard the sickening crunch of bones.  
  
She didn't know for sure how many injuries she had when she got dragged off to the hospital wing, but she figured she was pretty worse for wear. Every part of her body ached and it felt like her heart was beating triple-time in her chest, like when she was in middle school and they had to run a mile for gym class. She had that same pain across her chest and shoulders, the kind she knew wasn't from the fight, it felt more like that strange surge of pain she'd felt when she'd pressed Ivy to the bed with a hand on her throat.  
  
Her stay in the infirmary wing last a little over two weeks. Lying in bed for hours at a time, all she could think about was the fight; she replayed it over and over again in her head, imaginging what she would have done differently. She should have just walked away --  
  
(kick her in the face, yeah, break her jaw)  
  
\-- or kept her head down and just ignored it. And even if she hadn't done that, even if she  _had_  pushed back in retaliation, she should have just sat back and taken it. Should have just let them do whatever they --  
  
(smash that bitch's head against the wall, fucking paint it with her blood)  
  
\-- wanted to do to her. They were just some random girls, ones she'd never even seen before today, and she knew deep down that they would have been happy to pick a fight with  _anyone_ , but at the same time, she couldn't help but think that this was somehow her fault. Just looking at her, they must have known, known that she was used to people taking advantage of her. They must have seen the old scars and bruises and figured that she'd already been someone else's punching bag, so why not take advantage of that.   
  
There was a cut on the side of her mouth. She could feel it when she ran her tongue over her lips. A wound, then the early stages of healing. It irritated her, being able to feel it. She licked at it constantly, bored and annoyed. There were cuts on her body, too, from the fight, but they were kept bandaged up. Her fingers itched to pick at the scabs, to peel them off and watch blood well up in the cut in their absence. It felt as though it'd been ages since she'd last cut, even though it was only a couple months at best. She wanted nothing more than to be able to run a blade across her skin.  
  
But being in the hospital wing, that was what bothered her most.  
  
All she could think about was that time she'd woken up in a hospital, her last memory before waking up of Laura holding out an E tablet with a wink and a grin. Everyone had seen her cuts. They'd seen the scars. They knew that she'd been bad. They had just had this  _look_  on their faces that made her sick and want to scream.   
  
(i am not upset)  
  
(i am fine)  
  
This was no different. The nurses here knew. They  _had_  to know. They'd probably had it written down in their notes, stuffed into a file with her name on it, which was stored in an endlessly long and deep cabinet. All the girls who had come before and all the ones who would come after. Most of them would be forgotten, but oh, not her. No,  _her_  they'd always remember. The freak. The girl who liked to watch herself bleed. Who could forget someone as fucked up as that? They would sit and drink their coffee and gossip over lunch and just be so fucking  _better_  than her.  
  
At her sentencing hearing, they called her "unstable."   
  
That was the exact word the District Attorney used. Unstable. Dangerous. He'd asked for the full seven years to be served without the possibility of parole. She'd get out once she did her time, he said. Hopefully it would do her some good. Some good -- what sort of  _good_? Her asshole state-appointed defense attorney did shit to help. She knew he was just there to tell her where to sign her goddamn name and when to stand up and sit down. He didn't give a fuck about her. Of course he didn't. And she couldn't blame him, not really. But she resented him anyway, because fuck it, he could have at least _tried_ , after all.  
  
Seven years. Seven  _fucking_  years.  
  
There wasn't any point in trying to fight it, though, she knew. Who would take her word over the word of a cop anyway? The evidence was right fucking  _there_. No one really gave a shit if it was real or not, they were just happy to convict someone. And Detective Eric  _fucking_  Matthews did it all with a falsely humble smile and a small statement that would be nothing short of an amazing sound bite. Something to give the public, to ease their minds. Yes, it said. Everything is okay. We know what we're doing. You're all safe now, thanks to us.  
  
But it was all a fucking lie.   
  
(of course it was)  
  
Getting out of the hospital wing was like being able to breathe again. The air felt lighter, sweeter. She was actually grateful to be back in her cell again after those long, unbearable two weeks. Upon returning, she discovered that she'd gotten a new cellmate. Her name was Anna and she had shoulder length blonde hair and sharp blue eyes. They were like looking at stones underwater, almost. She'd gotten busted a second time for selling dope and was in prison for the long haul.  
  
"What are you in for?" she asked Amanda, lying down on her bunk with her arms crossed behind her head. "Let me guess . . . street walking?"  
  
"No," Amanda said, insulted.  
  
"You look the type."  
  
"Well, you're wrong," Amanda told her, hugging her knees to her chest. "It's 'cause they said I was selling. But I wasn't."  
  
Anna chuckled. "They all say that in here. It's always the cops who did it, right? That fucking D.A. did you in, he was in on it too."  
  
Amanda frowned. "I'm not lying."  
  
"Yeah, well." Anna made a small, non-committal sound.   
  
Amanda sighed, closing her eyes and leaning her head on the cool cement cell wall. Anna didn't seem so bad, not really. Her first cellmate had been the loud, obnoxious type, the kind of person who screamed and banged shit around in the night just for the fuck of it. Just to piss everyone else off. Amanda hadn't liked her at all and had tried to stay away from her as long as possible. Later, she found the girl had been moved to another block after spending a week in solitary confinement. Why she'd been moved, Amanda didn't know or care; she was just glad that the girl was gone.  
  
The first month with Anna passed uneventfully. Amanda had been afraid that she was going to have trouble with the girls she'd fought with earlier, but it appeared as though they'd moved on to other things while she'd been in recovery. Of course, she told herself. It was just a random fight. It happened all the time.   
  
(fucking worried about nothing)  
  
"Hey," Anna said, one night during their second month together. "You said you'd been arrested for selling, right? What was it?"  
  
"Um," Amanda said, picking at a small cut on her wrist that she'd gotten earlier when she'd scraped herself on one of the sharp corners of the inside of the bed. "Heroin, I think. Yeah, heroin."  
  
Anna made a sound of approval. "Cool. So, do you ever sample your wares or do you just keep your hands off the merchandise all together?"  
  
Amanda looked up. "What?"  
  
"I mean," Anna said, reaching into the front of her shirt and pulling out a tiny little vial of a whitish colored liquor. "Want any liquid pleasure? My treat."  
  
"I've never had any."  
  
(truth)  
  
"Sure, sure. Want some?"  
  
"No."  
  
(lie)  
  
Anna sighed dramatically, feigning rejection. "Well, if you really don't want any, I guess that means more for me." She sat down on the edge of her bunk, rolling up her sleeve and tightening it around her arm, just above her elbow. Amanda watched with morbid fascination as Anna fished a needle out of her pillow, injecting half the vial into her arm. She'd seen people get high before, but not by shooting up. This was different.  
  
After a long, heavy moment, Anna sighed again, though this time it was softer. More sincere. She set the needle down to her side and began to slowly unroll and pull down her sleeve. Amanda kept on watching her. Her lips felt suddenly dry and cracked; Amanda licked at them absentmindedly.   
  
Though the mattress, Anna said, in a sing song voice, "Come on, Mandy. I've got a little bit extra just waiting for you."  
  
Later, she couldn't explain why she did it. Maybe it was because she was feeling tired and irritable and the lack of opportunity to be able to cut was beginning to wear her out. Maybe it was because Anna was really an all right person, and often Amanda had thought, that if they'd met under different circumstances, they might have actually been more than just cellmates. They would have been good together, maybe. Probably.  
  
"Fine," she said at last, climbing down from her bed and joining Anna on her bunk. "Show me what to do."  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
The drugs were a rush.  
  
Anna said that it felt like you were having the best orgasm of your life -- times a hundred. Amanda hadn't believed her, but the moment that she pushed the needle in, the moment that the drugs kicked in, she knew Anna had been right. It felt like she was floating and falling all at once. It felt like every nerve ending on her body had become extra sensitive, as though every part of her was now super aware of her surroundings.   
  
"Good?" Anna asked, as they lay side-by-side on the lower bunk, squeezed in together on the tiny mattress. Anna was running her fingertips up and down Amanda's forearm, from her elbow down to her wrist and then back again. It felt like Anna's fingers were emitting tiny little sparks of lightning; Amanda's skin tingled from the touch. She was glad for the semi-darkness that they were given at night, even though the lights in the hall were still bright enough to remind them full privacy was not a liberty; she didn't want anyone to look in and see them together. It would ruin the moment.  
  
"I've never felt like this before," Amanda confessed, starry-eyed.   
  
Anna sighed, pleased. "Yeah."  
  
At some point in time, Amanda noticed, Anna's fingers had stopped moving along her arm and had settled down right on top of Amanda's hand. She held her breath; it was like there were magnets in both of their hands, drawing them closer and closer together. Amanda shifted, once, and then,  _yes_ , their palms were pressed flat against each other, their fingers were intertwined. The blood slowed her in veins, turning to slush.  
  
Out of the corner of her eye, she looked at Anna, who had her eyes closed and didn't even seem to realize that they were now just holding hands. Maybe, Amanda thought, she was just hyper-aware of everything going on right now. Maybe it wasn't really such a big deal. It felt like it was, but maybe --   
  
(probably)  
  
\-- it wasn't. Maybe this is what everyone did when they were high. She could remember lying on her bed with Laura, the tablet of E dissolving on her tongue. The way the sun had shone through the windows and circled Laura's head like a lopsided halo. The way her fingers had crept up Amanda's sleeve, the feeling of her fingers tracing Amanda's scars --  
  
(don't)  
  
\-- reading them, like a story. The look of confusion on her face, but her laugh, oh, it had been like  _stars_  and she hadn't cared that Amanda was lying or maybe she didn't know, but for a moment it had been so perfect and it was probably all because of the drugs then and the drugs now but she felt a thousand times better than when Laura kissed her or that first time she cut herself at thirteen or when Ivy's hand had slipped between her legs and brought her to the quickest and hardest orgasm of her life. It was better than that clever doctor's knowing smile or the boys who had bought her drink after drink after --  
  
(like fireworks and diamonds and the sun coming up over the ocean)  
  
\-- drink --  
  
(like running through the wet grass)  
  
(heart pounding)  
  
(endless happiness and reckless ambition)  
  
\-- until the world spun out of control.  
  
"Oh," Amanda said, very, very slowly, blinking as once more she was staring up at the bottom of her bunk. Anna's hand was still in hers, their fingers intertwined, only now Anna was humming softly and stroking her thumb back and forth across the back of Amanda's hand.  
  
Anna turned, smiled at her. "You all right?"  
  
"Yeah. Just, wow, flying."  
  
"Me too," Anna said. She put her head against the crook of Amanda's neck.   
  
(like, wow, beautiful)  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
From  _Natural Born Killer: the True Story of Amanda Young_ , by Cynthia Wharton (Apple Press: 2013), p. 129:

> . . . and in prison Amanda Young came face to a face with a woman who would not only satisfy her desire to self-injure, but who also provided Amanda with both a romantic and sexual outlet. The woman's name was Anna Strasky, who was sentenced in 1997 to serve out a twenty five year prison term for possession of heroin with intent to sell, as well as minor charges such as assaulting a police officer. Anna was twenty six when she arrived at the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, California, and had already done a string of smaller sentences beginning when she was still a minor. She was also a very charming and non-threatening individual and so to a person like Amanda, who suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder, she was the perfect sort of person to open up to and form an emotional bond with.  
>   
> How deeply this bond actually ran is unclear; we know that Anna provided Amanda with drugs and protection, with Amanda possibly using sex as a form of payment. But alliances made in prison are usually more for convenience rather than a true desire to bond. However, since she  _did_  suffer from BPD, it is probably likely to assume that Amanda did become quite attached to her. Despite their sexual relationship, it's most likely that, in Amanda's mind, Anna stood as a replacement familiar figure for one she would have never had growing up; a mother, or perhaps an older sister. It is doubtful she ever saw Anna Strasky as simply a lover.  
>   
> It was Anna too who allowed Amanda's bad habits to flourish: by providing drugs, she was able to fill the void in Amanda's life by allowing her to self-injure without cutting (a source of stress-relief that Amanda neither could not nor was willing to attempt to achieve while incarcerated). As well as this, she encouraged Amanda's more violent and aggressive tendencies . . .

 

\- -

  
  
  
They always had sex when they were sober, never when they were high.  
  
Perhaps that was why, in contrast to their soft, delicate touches during their up times, in their down times, everything was rough and hard and fast and  _almost_  unpleasant. Everything was black and white; a complete contrast. As far as Amanda was concerned, with Anna, there were no shades of gray. There was the Anna she got high with and the Anna she fucked and everything was nice and neat and simple, just like that.   
  
At night, when it was almost dark -- dark enough in the cells, at least -- Amanda would slip down to Anna's bunk. They rarely spoke at times like this, unless it was a desperate, throaty whisper: More. Please. Don't. Stop. Fuck. Yes. Names were gritted out from between clenched teeth and nails digging into wrists. Amanda. Anna. Later -- whenever  _later_  was -- they would get high; Anna, with her endless supply, would pass Amanda the needle once she was done. High, Anna would touch the scratches or bite marks on Amanda's skin and run her fingertips over them. A little gentleness to even out the hurt.  
  
If she noticed the cuts on Amanda's arms, faded as they were, she didn't say anything. In the event that she ever did, Amanda had already worked out what she would say. Sometimes, in her head, she would replay what she imagined the conversation would be like, how it would go.  _What are these from?_  My cat. It didn't like me very much.  _Yeah, really?_  No.  _Didn't think so._  
  
See, that was the thing about Anna. She was different. Like me, Amanda thought to herself, once, and it caught her completely off guard. They weren't the same, not really, but sometimes it  _felt_  like they were. It felt like Anna understood, when Amanda shivered and begged and sulked and got angry, because she had been there, had felt all those things. She knew what it was like to come slamming back down to earth, trying not to puke while your head almost exploded with pain. She knew how bad things could get when they went without the heroin, when the ache of withdrawal made her so angry and sad all at once that she felt like she was just going to lash out at someone, exploding.   
  
And maybe, Amanda thought, she would know what it was like when you were filled with an anger so hot and deep that it physically  _hurt_  to keep it all inside. Maybe she knew what it felt like when everything just seemed so far off and muffled, as if you'd been yanked from your body and forced to watch someone else walk around in your body. Maybe she knew what it was like to feel so sad that it was like drowning. Maybe Amanda could show her her cuts and Anna would understand.  
  
(maybe, always just  _maybe_ )  
  
In the end, Amanda simply asked, "Do you ever feel like you just can't  _stop_  being angry? Like one day you just  _were_  and it never went away?"  
  
Anna glanced out the fence towards the main gate in the distance, blew smoke up at the sky. "Yeah. Sometimes."  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
Excerpt from a letter dated September 9, 1998, from Amanda Young, Valley State Prison for Women, Chowchilla, California, to Jennifer Rowery, San Francisco, California:

> ... was very pleased and surprised to see that you'd written me. It has been a very long time since Stephen and I have talked, and even longer since we've seen each other. I had half-thought that he had forgotten about me after all these years. I really don't know what to say. What do you say when you hear from your cousin's wife after not talking to him for almost a decade? You sound like a very nice person, really. I think that Stephen is very lucky to have married someone as kind as you -- someone who would write to a woman in prison that you don't even know. I wish that I could think of something to say that wasn't horribly awkward . . . but I'm sorry, I've never really been that good at letter writing.  
>   
> In answer to your questions, yes, my mother still does live at that old address, but I would advise against visiting her, even if Stephen is just looking to tie up loose ends. My mother has a . . . well, uneven temperament. As I'm certain Stephen can tell you, my father did not always have the nicest disposition and my mother, as she's aged, has become quite like him. She is also rather fond of whiskey too, and that and anger tend to go hand and hand with her these days. Of course I haven't seen her since my sophomore year of college, but I sincerely doubt that she's changed much since then; in fact, I think it would be fair to say that she's probably gotten worse.  
>   
> It's best just to let sleeping dogs lie, right?   
>   
> I really don't know what else to say, sorry. I wish this letter could be longer and more . . . I don't know what you're looking for or what you want me to say. I have to admit, it's really weird to be hearing from Stephen -- well, not even Stephen himself, but, really,  _you_ , his wife -- after not talking to him for several years now. And not seeing him for almost a decade. To be honest, I had thought maybe he'd forgotten about me; I'd half-forgotten about him too, I suppose. Why is it that that always happens?  
>   
> But I do want to stress again how nice your letter was, and I'd very much appreciate it if you wrote me again sometime. I think maybe then I'd have more -- and know what to -- say . . .

 

\- -

  
  
  
Heroin made everything better. At least, for a little while.  
  
The problem was, she felt like she always needed more.  _Once_  was never enough. When she was coming down, all she could think about was when she was going to get high again. More than the actual high itself, she loved the rush of the seeking, the purchase, the preparation. The knowledge that soon,  _soon_ , she would be up in the clouds again. It was the lick of excitement that raced across her stomach when she tightened the tourniquet around her arm, when she licked her lips and pushed the needle into her skin.  _That_  was what she loved the most.  
  
Right out of college, she'd decided to go to nursing school. Mostly because she didn't know what to actually  _do_  with a degree in Biology and it just seemed easier that actually going to work full time. She couldn't imagine herself sitting in some office, working a nine to five day in a little tiny cubicle decorated with stupid team building cards and certificates that proved she could do absolutely nothing of substance. So when the fall semester of her college senior year had rolled around and the career office had begun pestering all the expectant graduates, she'd decided to keep on with school with nursing. She'd been more than a little surprised when she'd actually got  _accepted_  to do it, but she supposed she hadn't done all  _that_  poorly in school, not in the past year or so anyway and she'd more than exceeded the prerequisite requirements.  
  
Of course, she'd only just barely begun nursing school by the time she was arrested, but sometimes, when she wasn't high and wasn't going crazy from withdrawal, she considered maybe applying again, trying to go back and get it done right this time. It obviously would have been better than working at the coffee shop, making minimum wage and doing absolutely nothing with her life. At age thirty, she figured she'd be at least somewhere in a good place by now.   
  
She blamed the smack and she blamed jail and she blamed everyone else that had come before that as well, but really, she knew, there was no one to blame but herself. Every single mistake had been her own, either intentional or not, and when she started going to withdrawal, that's when she started to get sad, and she'd sit and stare out the window and watch the city live on without her and wonder what would have happened if she'd just fucking  _tried_. She could have been something special, maybe, at least to someone.   
  
But when Amanda got high, that's when everything seemed all right. She was less of a loser, less of a failure. Less of that girl who'd been called "unstable," less of that girl who cried and begged and wet herself when her father locked her under the stairs. She wasn't that girl who couldn't get friendships right, let  _alone_  relationships. Wasn't a total fuck up or someone who made her father angry and her mother want to drink. Not the girl who the rest of the family was ashamed with, because really, who else had done so little in so much time?  
  
She cared. But she didn't. But she did. It depended on the day, the hour, her mood. So fucking indecisive about  _everything_.  
  
When she was in prison, there was mandatory counseling. It was bullshit, of course, the whole idea of getting everyone to sit in a circle and talk about their fucking  _feelings_. She didn't even understand why she had to go, but apparently it was the only way she could be evaluated and get a job while inside. She hated every single moment that she had to sit there. Every so often the counselor would remember that she was actually there and ask her some inane questions about how she was. As if she was just having a marvelous fucking time being locked up.   
  
The counselor used to tap his pen against his leg. The incessant, soft  _tap tap tap_  nearly drove her fucking insane; more than once she imagined grabbing it from him and stabbing him in the goddamn leg with it. As if  _that_  would have done her any fucking good at all. She'd probably get tossed into solitary for two weeks and get bumped up to a higher security ward. Just what she needed.  
  
She got a job doing laundry with Anna, which was the best luck she'd had in a long time. More than once Anna would grab her by her plain, cotton white shirt and kiss her, laughing, as they knocked neatly folded towels to the ground in their excitement. It was both thrilling and terrifying, to think of being seen by the guards -- not like they really cared, Anna had assured her -- and it was even better when Anna would grab Amanda's hand and yank it down her pants and underwear. Even now she could see herself, fingers working, while Anna leaned back against the table, gripping the sides so hard her knuckles turned white.  
  
The memory of it ignited a spark of arousal in her and, lying on her messy, unmade bed with only a t-shirt and underpants on, she groaned and slipped a hand between her legs. But being high made her lazy and tired and when she was alone, there was no real incentive to get off, so she ended up lazily stroking between her thighs for several long moments before growing bored, her wrist beginning to ache dully. She fell asleep like that and dreamt of girls with blood-red lips and eyes with stars in them.  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
From  _Jigsaw_ , p. 200:

> . . . The fact that Amanda Young passed her test was, in John Kramer's eyes, remarkable. The fact that it did indeed cause Young to re-evaluate her life and quit using heroin was the inspiration that Kramer needed to keep going forward with his tests. Here was a real, live example of just how well his "method" worked. Of course, the fact that Young idolized Kramer for his perverse "saving" of her life did not help either; though Detective Allison Kerry noted in her report on Kramer following the events in which Eric Matthews was tested that Kramer did not seem to relish his fame or appear egotistical, it is perhaps safe to assume that Young's survival and subsequent "rebirth" boosted his confidence in his unique philosophy on life.   
>   
> It seems Young was the last piece of the puzzle for Kramer, in order for him to attain, in his own mind at least, his god-like status . . .

 

\- -

  
  
  
Getting high was easy.  
  
Just a tightening of the elastic around her arm, the sting of the needle being pushed into her skin. The rush, that came before the high when she just knew that in a moment she'd be flying. The high itself. Nothing mattered for her, in those moments; she forgot about her shithole apartment and her dead end job. Forgot about prison, forgot about the lines of scars on her arms and thighs, sharp, white rows that never really faded. Forgot about her father, the suffocating darkness, the creak of the cellar staircase and the stink of piss and sweat.  
  
Sometimes she wouldn't eat for days, simply existing in a dreamy, drowsy state that was halfway between awake and asleep; she could hear people talking, but it sounded as if they were speaking from far off, like down the end of a long tunnel. It felt, at times, like the world around her no longer existed, was just caught in a fuzzy haze of nothingness in the somewhere in between. Her head and hands would get heavy; on weekends she'd spend entire days just in bed, not sleeping, just staring up at the ceiling.  
  
No one around her seemed to notice. If they did, they didn't mention it. The one time her supervisor had seemed suspicious, she'd pulled him into the stockroom and had given him a handjob right there, rough and quick and dirty. Later, coming down, the very thought of it made her sick; she thought about breaking open her disposable razor in the bathroom, picking out the blade and pressing it against her skin until her fingers were coated with blood. She missed cutting; it was just one more then she lost in prison.  
  
(something fucking  _wrong_  with her, just take a look)  
  
Instead, when she could finally pull herself up from her bedroom floor, she'd reached for her needle and stash. It wasn't the same. But it would do.  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
There was a club near her apartment called  _Sapphire_. One look at the place and Amanda knew it was a girls only club. She also knew it was someplace that she had to visit, eventually. Probably while high too, she thought, sitting on her bed and drinking a Coke, needing a sugar rush after coming down fantastically hard an hour earlier. It had left her weak and tired and shivering and she'd barely been able to pull herself up off the bathroom floor. But now the television was on -- the news, mostly static though, thanks to her shitty reception -- and feeling the sugar and caffeine kick in, she felt a bit better.  
  
She'd tried going back to what she used to do before prison, being with a new person each night, but it wore her out after only a week. Heroin and prison had gotten to her, she knew. She just didn't have the same stamina she had before, and, though she didn't like to admit it to herself, she just simply lacked the desire. Why go out and work so hard for only a few small, fleeting moments of pleasure when she could sit at home, shoot up, and feel good for hours, even days? It just seemed like such a fucking waste of time.  
  
But she still liked sex just fine, of course, and she'd managed to clock in a few hours of overtime this week and thus had a little extra money to spare -- after she'd scored some junk from her dealer and paid what little she owed this week in rent. During the day, Amanda worked at a little coffee shop in the main lobby of Angel of Mercy hospital. It wasn't the best job, but it was still a  _job_  and she was grateful to have it, because at least it paid enough to feed her addiction. Lucky for her, she'd run into Paul just when she'd gotten out.  
  
"Here," he'd said, writing down the name and phone number of the manager on a slip of paper in messy handwriting. "Talk to this guy, all right? He's helped me out a few times before when I needed some money. As long as you're clean, he doesn't care about if you've been locked up or not. You clean?"  
  
"Sure," Amanda lied, face blank. "Yeah, whatever. I'm cool."  
  
She got a job the next day without so even much as an actual interview. The manager had looked her up and down, asked her if she had any experience with customer service (she hadn't) and if she minded working overtime if she needed to (she didn't). A long, heavy sigh later and she was told to come in the next morning for her first shift. She found out later that the guy was desperate to hire someone new after the last girl had quit a week earlier after accusing him of sexually inappropriate behavior. But Amanda didn't mind his wandering eyes -- and, occasionally, wandering hands -- too much. She needed this job and anyway, it was job security; she didn't have to worry about coming into work while still high or spiralling down. He didn't ask questions.  
  
Inside the club, it was loud and dark. The front end of the bar was separated from the rest of the club, which were visible through a set of double doors. Amanda plunked a five dollar bill down on the bar and ordered two shots of tequila, which she quickly downed sans lime and salt. She winced, licked at her lips, then ordered herself a beer. She wasn't a fan of dancing, not really, but she did like watching people.   
  
Settling down on one of the over-sized leather couches in the corner of the club, she sipped at her beer, watching girls flirt and fight and kiss and dance. Her high was just beginning to peak as she finished off her drink, sinking into the chair with a satisfied sigh. She could feel the throbbing bass from the dance floor reverberating up through her body, like little licks of lightning up and down her skin.  
  
She was just beginning to drift off into a space between sleeping and waking, dreaming of lightning coming out of fingertips, of tiny little fireworks going off behind her eyelids, when she was interrupted by the sound of someone clearing her throat.  
  
Amanda squinted up at the stranger, annoyed. "Yeah?"  
  
It was a woman, about her age, maybe a little bit older, dressed in a sharp, pinstripe suit. In one hand she was holding a martini; the other one was on her hip. She took a sip of her drink and, after a long pause, said, "Who are you?"  
  
"I don't how that's any of your business," Amanda said, struggling to break free of the dream-like state she'd been sucked into. She was annoyed that someone had come over here to interrupt her; couldn't they tell that she wanted to be alone? After all, she'd only picked the darkest corner of the club to sit in. But obviously this woman hadn't picked up on that.   
  
The other woman shrugged, nonplussed. "Fair enough," she said, and took a seat on the couch opposite to where Amanda was sitting. "I'm Taylor." She didn't extend her hand; Amanda nodded curtly at her, not smiling, even though the woman was. Her smile showed too much teeth, her lipstick was too red; it made Amanda feel uncomfortable.  
  
Amanda stared at her. The woman stared back. Finally, getting irritated and bored, Amanda said, "And?"  
  
"You're new," Taylor said, lounging back in her seat.   
  
"Oh?"   
  
Taylor shrugged, sipped her martini. "Well, I've never seen you here before."   
  
Amanda stared at the folds in her suit and wondered what she looked like, underneath her clothes; she imagined pressing the side of her face against Taylor's chest, listening to her heart beat. It would go like this: rough, then gentle, then rough again: just a roller coaster of a fuck. Taylor would push Amanda's head down, bite her lip, throw her leg over Amanda's shoulder. She imagined Taylor would make little mewing sounds right before she came, every muscle in her body tense and straining.   
  
(yeah, yeah, just like that, harder)   
  
"Maybe it's  _me_  who hasn't seen  _you_ ," Amanda said.   
  
Taylor's face broke out into a wide, wolfish grin. "And now that you have?"   
  
Amanda reached forward, grabbing Taylor by the front of her neat, pressed, off-white blouse; their lips met in the middle, mouths crashing together. It took Taylor a second before she began to kiss back, but when she did, Amanda felt her lips turn up into a grin. A moment later and she was being pressed back against the seats, Taylor straddling her waist, a knee on each side of Amanda's thighs.   
  
"Impressed yet?" Taylor panted against Amanda's ear, breath hot on her skin. She smelled like smoke and sickly sweet perfume, with a hint of soap and sweat and alcohol underneath all that. Amanda leaned up and traced along the edge of Taylor's ear with her tongue, nipping at the lobe. She felt Taylor's perfectly manicured nails dig into her shoulders and smirked.   
  
Taylor cupped Amanda's face in her hand, peppered it with kisses. "Come on," she said, eyes bright and feverish with desire. "Come on, let's go."   
  
Amanda toyed with a button on Taylor's blazer. "Where?"   
  
"My place, your place -- fuck it, let's go anywhere, I don't care." Taylor had begun to slowly grind her hips against Amanda's, which was, Amanda thought, mind still a bit hazy from shooting up earlier, possibly one of the hottest things she had ever experienced thus far in her life. "Come on, come on," Taylor said, against Amanda's mouth. "I don't like playing around."   
  
"Who says that we're playing?" Amanda asked, reaching up to grip the back of Taylor's head with one hand, trailing light kisses along the curve of her neck. "Why bother leaving when it's so nice right here?"   
  
Taylor groaned. "I'm not going to fuck you in this club," she said, in a harsher tone than before   
  
Amanda, suddenly annoyed, slid her hand around to the front of Taylor's neck and pressed it against Taylor's windpipe. Taylor didn't flinch; Amanda pressed a little more. Taylor just scowled down at her and ground her hips so hard and slowly against Amanda's that it felt like time was almost moving backwards.   
  
(oh)   
  
"You don't want to play rough with me, little girl," Taylor said, in a low, dangerous voice, her lips just barely hovering above Amanda's lips.   
  
(different)   
  
For a second, Amanda believed that Taylor was going to up and leave, but then Taylor was kissing her again, full on the mouth, hard and desperate. Amanda pulled her hand away, pressed her palm flat against the curve of Taylor's back. They kissed until Amanda felt like her lips were bruised and her head was starting to spin as she began to spin down from her high. And only then did they leave; Taylor slipped off her, standing with a grin, reaching down for Amanda's hand.   
  
They stumbled into Taylor's apartment twenty minutes later, drunk and laughing. Amanda couldn't remember if she'd ever felt this wound up before; in the taxi, Taylor had snaked her hand up Amanda's skirt, fingers stroking lightly along the inside of Amanda's thigh. Amanda had gripped the door handle and tried to keep her breathing low and even. She had felt nearly ready to explode by the time they'd finally stopped and in the elevator, she'd pressed Taylor against the wall and pushed a knee up between Taylor's legs, satisfied at how Taylor moaned and gripped her shoulders, throwing her head back.  
  
She pushed Taylor to the bed, fumbling to get her own clothes off as Taylor stripped beneath her. When they were finally undressed, Amanda pressed herself flush against Taylor, kissing her with absolutely no finesse at all, just sloppy and needy and completely filthy.   
  
"Come on," Taylor grunted, frustrated, in Amanda's ear, bucking up. "Come on, fuck me."   
  
Amanda grinned at her and slipped down between Taylor's thighs.   
  
Later, she wouldn't even remember most of what had happened. She woke up at four the next morning with a pounding headache and feeling like she was going to be sick. Her body ached from too much alcohol and coming down. Her legs felt weak and standing up, she wobbled a bit, unsteady. If Taylor noticed that she was slipping out, she didn't show it. Amanda watched Taylor sleep as she dressed, zipping up her skirt and frowning when she realized she'd ripped off half the buttons on her top in her attempt to get it off.   
  
(fuck it)   
  
Having no money, she had to walk home. She threw up twice on the way and was shivering so much when she got back to her crappy apartment --   
  
(fucking taylor with her goddamn penthouse, fuck her)   
  
\-- that she dropped her keys half a dozen times before she was finally able to hold onto them and open the door. Inside, she stripped off her clothes, leaving a trail from the door to the bathroom, where she took a shower hot enough to scald her skin. She needed a fix, bad. She shouldn't have had so fucking much to drink the night before, but she hadn't been able to stop herself at the time. A complete fucking disaster. Her legs gave out and she collapsed to the shower floor. It took her until the water turned cold until she was finally able to pull herself up to her feet, head spinning.   
  
She stared at herself in the mirror, eyes blood shot, wet hair dripping into the sink, onto the floor, clinging to her face and neck. Christ. An hour and a half until she had to be at work and she felt so sick that she wanted to smash her fist into the mirror; at least the pain would take her mind off it.   
  
(no, you're different now, you don't need that)   
  
(don't be such a fucking pussy)   
  
Teeth brushed and hair combed, she sat on the edge of her bed and watched as the needle pierced through her skin, watched as the plunger pushed the liquid into her veins.   
  
(there we go)  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
She didn't remember much about how she got here, wherever  _here_  was. Her last waking thought was that it must have been a particularly strong dose this time, because she'd never gotten so high so quickly. The stars danced around in the sky outside, the roar of the traffic on the streets below sounded more like waves, coming in and crashing against the beach. Lying down, she felt like she was simply melting -- or sinking, even, yeah, that was better -- into her bed. She closed her eyes and felt the world spin under her. Everything was irrelevant; she felt amazing.  
  
"Wow," she said out loud, to herself, and let herself drift off into a state of almost-sleep.  
  
It had been so nice. She'd felt weightless. Untouchable. Grounded, but not really grounded at all, more like a kite floating up in the sky with the string tied down to something on the ground below. She traced her finger tips over the bumps on the smooth skin of the inside of her elbows, ran them over the fading scars a bit further along. When was the last time she'd cut? Surely it had been ages ago. Before prison; the very thought seemed like a lifetime ago. That had been some other girl in some other world. Not her.  
  
She was new. Changed. Not the old Amanda Young, but a new, better one, where everything was lovely and nice and fine.  
  
But then she woke up.  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
From the  _Los Angeles Times_ , May 2, 2004:

. . . appears as though she is one of the latest victims of a serial killer the press has nicknamed the "Jigsaw Killer," a killer whose  _modus operandi_ involves kidnapping people who he claims are not appreciative of their lives and putting them into clever constructed death traps which allows for a slim possibility of survival. However, there is something unique about this latest "test subject" that distinguishes her from the rest: she survived.

 

\- -

  
  
  
From the sworn testimony of Amanda S. Young, taken before The State Investigatory Board of California in connection with the events of April 29, 2004 in Los Angeles, California (abridged version which follows is from  _Protégé: The Young Commission Report_ , Signet Books: New York, 2008):

Q. Ms. Young, are you a resident of Los Angeles?  
  
A. Yes.  
  
Q. What is your address?  
  
A. I -- I'm not sure. Um, I can't remember exactly. A shitty little room on -- um, 263 Chamberlain Road, across town.   
  
Q. Please describe your current occupation.  
  
A. Um, I . . . I work at a little cafe over at the Angel of Mercy Hospital downtown. It's in the lobby. It's eight hours a day and not that bad. I -- I get good tips. Mostly the people who come in are nice. They just want to relax. I don't mind it; it's enough.  
  
Q. And your police record says that you were arrested and spent some time in prison. Can you elaborate on this?  
  
A.  _(no response)_  
  
Q. Amanda?  
  
A. Possession of heroin. I got seven years. I went to Valley State, did my time there. There's not much else to tell. I did my time, kept my head down, got out. Haven't been back.   
  
Q. And while in prison, you developed a drug addiction, did you not?  
  
A. Yes.  
  
Q. Ms. Young, do you remember how you ended up in that warehouse?  
  
A. I was . . . I was in bed, I remember. I had just shot up, um, maybe fifteen minutes or so before hand. I was lying on my bed, on top of the covers, just staring at the ceiling. I remember thinking that I had to be in early for work the next day. The ceiling was spinning. And then I just -- I'm not sure. I think I fell asleep. Maybe I was drugged -- uh, aside from the smack, I mean. I was really, really tired. When I woke up, I was in the chair, with my wrists tied down with duct tape. My mouth was filled with the taste of metal and blood. I thought . . . I . . . I thought, when I was just waking up, how blood doesn't really like copper, it tastes like iron.  
  
Q. Why did you think that?  
  
A. I don't know, I just did.  
  
Q. What happened next?  
  
A.  _(no response)_  
  
Q. Ms. Young, I know it may be difficult, but please answer the question; what happened next?  
  
A.  _(no response)_  
  
Q. Amanda?   
  
A. I don't want to talk about it.  
  
Q. You're giving a sworn state testimony.  
  
A. You have the tape. You've seen the body. I've got the wounds on my fucking face right here. There's still blood under my goddamn fingernails; I've been scrubbing and scrubbing but I can't wash away the stain. I can still fucking  _smell_  it. Taste it. You want to know what happened?  
  
Q. Please.  
  
A. I was a fucking junkie, that's what happened.   
  
Q. You told the police that you thought that is why the Jigsaw Killer targeted you out. Do you believe that, Ms. Young? That he wanted to teach you a lesson about appreciating your life? You've stated that you were grateful for what happened. Do you think that what happened to you was a good thing?  
  
A. He . . . he  _helped_  me.   
  
Q. And you truly believe that?  
  
A. I was a drug addict. Now I'm not.   
  
Q. Let's go back to . . . uh, your test. Please, describe to us what happened. What you saw, what you did. That sort of thing.  
  
A. I woke up. I tasted blood. And then -- then the TV came on. And there was that weird puppet thing, telling me why I had been chosen, what would happen to me. I can't -- I can't go into detail. I don't remember exactly what was said. I saw how my jaws would be ripped open. I started to panic. Once I was able to get up from the chair, when I stood up, there was a sort of like . . . wire, I guess, attached to the timer. When I stood up, it ripped the wire out and started the timer. I struggled for a bit; like I said, I was panicking. I thought maybe somehow I could just take it off . . . I don't know. I wasn't thinking.   
  
Q. And then?  
  
A. Then I . . . I saw . . .  _him_.   
  
Q. Your cellmate? A Mr. Donnie Greco?  
  
A. I didn't know who he was. Just some stranger. He was drugged. Some sort of opiate overdose. That's what the police said.  
  
Q. You originally told police you didn't know he was still alive --  
  
A. I  _didn't_  know. The tape -- Jigsaw -- told me he was dead.   
  
Q. So you got free of the chair, stood up, set off the timer. Then you saw the body; did you walk over then? Did you see the scalpel?  
  
A. The -- the body. I saw the body first. Then the knife. I knelt down, pulled up his shirt. There was . . . there was . . . a question mark painted over his stomach. And I just . . . I just  _knew_  then, what I had to do. I felt the knife in my hand, I saw the question mark, the way the mannequin's head on the tape just exploded when the device went off. I felt . . . Out of place. No. It wasn't like that. It felt like I was watching someone else move my body for me. Someone else was moving my arm up and down. There was blood on my hands. On my arms. I kept just -- just fucking  _stabbing_ , I didn't know how to stop.  
  
Q. But you found the key.  
  
A. Obviously.  
  
Q. And you managed to get the device off your head.  
  
A. No.  
  
Q. You didn't?  
  
A. Which is why I died and am not in fact sitting here in front of you all today.  
  
Q. Please spare us the sarcasm, Ms. Young.  
  
A. I'll spare you from that when you spare me from all these fucking mundane questions. Are these really the only questions you can think to ask me? As if you don't already know what I'm going to say. You've  _seen_  the tape. I already told the police everything that happened. There was a report. And I'm sitting right fucking here, so obviously I did what I was asked. I don't see what's so goddamn important about me just stating the same facts over and over again. We already know how it's going to play out.  
  
Q. You do realize you're the only one of Jigsaw's so-called "test subjects" to survive?  
  
A.  _(no response)_  
  
Q. Ms. Young?  
  
A. Yeah, I know. I'm special.

 

\- -

  
  
  
From police files recovered from the desk of Detective Allison Kerry, LAPD, as first published in  _Protégé: The Young Commission Report_ :

> Amanda appears to be grateful that was was chosen as one of Jigsaw's victims and truly believes that he helped her. She seems to be otherwise mentally and emotionally stable, though understandably shaken. Judging by the numerous, highly visible track marks on her arms it's clear she has been abusing heroin for some time, but according to her testimony she quit using as soon as she'd survived her "test." (This should be investigated further in the future in case of changes.)  
>   
> Two years prior she completed a prison sentence for heroin possession but seems to have walked the straight and narrow since then, disregarding her drug addiction. Interviews are to be conducted at a later date with her landlord, employer, and the public clinic doctor she frequented prior to her being "tested."   
>   
> Dr. Jill Tuck of the Los Angeles Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Center (address on file): must contact about Amanda's previous clinical treatments in regards to her heroin addiction and get Dr. Tuck's thoughts on Amanda's sudden withdrawal from the drug and what the possible side effects may be.  
>   
> (If Amanda relapses, will Jigsaw "choose" her again? Possible witness safety issues to consider here.)  
>   
> Overall, it appears as though right now Amanda Young is neither a threat to herself nor to others, but it is recommended that she be kept under police surveillance for approximately a week in order to assure her safety and the safety of others, in the case of a possible (though unlikely) mental breakdown.   
>   
> Final conclusions regarding Amanda and her experience with the Jigsaw Killer cannot be made until all outlets have been exhausted and the appropriate interviews (as listed above) are conducted . . . 


	5. Chapter 5

When she slept, she dreamt about being back there.  
  
Back in that thin, metal chair, wrists tied down to the arms with duct tape. Her neck sore from the angle she'd slept on it. Her mouth aching, inside and out; she could taste blood inside her mouth, warm and thick. Ominous. Waking up had been horrifying. She couldn't remember a time when she'd been that afraid; it was worse, even, than her first night under the basement steps. She'd struggled desperately against her bonds -- and then the television came on. She remembered the growing sense of doom she'd felt as Jigsaw carefully explained that these were her last few moments of life -- unless she did something about it.  
  
In the movies, it always looked so easy to stab people. Like a hot knife sliding through, butter, almost. She was shocked when she slammed the scalpel down the first time and the blade was met with resistance. She'd had to try again, bring it down  _harder_ , again and again and again. Pierce through all those layers of flesh and muscle and fat.   
  
She remembered the way her arms had ached. The way she'd almost just missed the key and how slick her fingers had been with blood. She'd been seconds away from dying. Not even seconds. More like a breath, a moment's hesitation. If she had paused, even for a second, she would have been dead.  
  
Every night for the first week she woke up screaming. Certain that he was watching her, certain that he'd found another fault of hers. And who could blame him, when she was guilty of so much? Every night she relived her game over and over. Every night she closed her eyes and woke up back in that chair. She could taste the blood and metal in her mouth. She could feel that same rush of panic. Every night she woke up and brought her hands to her head, frantically checking to make sure she no longer had that  _thing_ , whatever it was, on.  
  
And then, at last, he came for her.  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
From police files recovered from the desk of Detective David Tapp, LAPD, as first published in  _Protégé: The Young Commission Report_ :

> . . . and brought Dr. Gordon into the station after Detective Kerry discovered a penlight at the crime scene of Mark Wilson -- prints found on the penlight were subsequently matched to Dr. Gordon's. Amanda Young was asked brought down to the station as well, to give an informal interview. It was our hope that it was get some sort of reaction from Gordon that we could use, but the experiment proved fruitless. Interesting, though, was the fact that Young once again insisted that this "Jigsaw Killer" had helped her, even after a cooling off period of almost two months. It is somewhat of an alarming thought . . .

 

\- -

  
  
  
From the sworn testimony of Amanda S. Young, taken before The State Investigatory Board of California in connection with the events of April 29, 2004 in Los Angeles, California (abridged version which follows is from  _Protégé: The Young Commission Report_ , Signet Books: New York, 2008):

> Q. Ms. Young, your father went to prison when you were fifteen years old.
> 
> A. Yes. I'm sorry, is that even a fucking question?
> 
> Q. If you could elaborate on the subject, the Commission would like to hear what you have to say.
> 
> A. My father was a drunk. Abusive. He wasn't worth the air that he breathed, to put it as nicely and bluntly as possible. He liked to drink and he liked to hit my mother. He liked to hit  _me_  too -- I know that's what you're looking for me to say. But it's true, he did. That's why he went to prison. I mean, I guess somebody finally figured it out -- what he was doing. It only took me getting put in the goddamn _hospital_  --
> 
> Q. Have you spoken to your father recently?
> 
> A. No. Hell, I haven't even spoken to him since he was fucking  _arrested_. Not like we had a good father-daughter relationship to begin with, you know? He wasn't . . . he didn't talk to me. Not ever, not really. I can't remember if we ever said more than a handful of words to each other at a time. He was usually out at work or at the bar or passed out somewhere. He didn't have time for me, except when he needed a punching bag.
> 
> Q. So there's no way your father could have known about your period of incarceration and subsequent drug addition?
> 
> A. I don't know. Maybe my mom told him. I know she still writes to him occasionally. Or used to, when I was younger. Maybe she doesn't anymore. Why? If you want to know, why don't you just go ask her yourself? Or go talk to my father himself -- he's in jail, should be pretty easy to find.
> 
> Q. We're simply trying to find a connection between you and the Jigsaw Killer. 
> 
> A. Well, he could be  _anyone_. And I doubt he would have known my father anyway, much less spoken to him.
> 
> Q. Oh?
> 
> A. I just figure, whoever this Jigsaw Killer is, he has to be pretty smart, right? Clever. He's got to really know what he's doing and aside from it being a total waste of time to pick out victims by interviewing their relatives, it would also be completely stupid. That would just be  _asking_  to be caught, yeah? He wouldn't make those kinds of mistakes. He's probably just some random guy who I met maybe once. If that. Like the tape said, he knows me but I don't know him. I think, really, that I could have been  _anyone_.
> 
> Q. And since surviving your potentially deadly game and giving a testimony to the police, as well as appearing here before the Commission, have you been contacted by or spoken to the Jigsaw Killer in any way?
> 
> A. No. Why would I? Why would he even bother to try and contact me?
> 
> Q. Well, Ms. Young, as you yourself stated earlier, albeit sarcastically, you are, in fact, special . . .

 

\- -

  
  
  
John said, "There is no going back."  
  
He didn't know that she didn't  _want_  to go back. The Amanda Young that she'd been before she met him, the junkie, the criminal, the fucking weak  _loser_  she'd been was no one to be proud of. The only thing she wanted was to look forward, to think about how good her life was  _going_  to be, not how bad it  _had_  been. Who was that girl, anyway? Just a no one. A loner. A freak. Someone who was content with only just getting by and happy to be sleep walking through life. When she'd said that she'd been saved, it hadn't been a lie. Far from it, actually; if there was one fucking thing that she was grateful for in life is that he'd chosen to save her.  
  
She was forever in debt to him, for that. She couldn't say  _thank you_ , not to John, not really, so she tried extra hard to make it as obvious as possible that she was thankful for what he had done. Anything he needed, she was there to give it to him, no matter what it was. It didn't matter if it involved planning for the next game or just boring day to day chores -- she was more than happy to do it. All she wanted was to please him, to make her proud of him.  
  
Amanda knew she was weak. She knew she was far from perfect. But maybe, she thought, maybe John was right. Maybe all it took was a shove in the right direction to realize that you were fucking your life up. That this was your  _only_  chance to live and there was no point in wasting it, because really, what came after death? Nothing at all. She was tired of feeling sorry for herself, tired of counting out all the maybes and could-have-beens. Tired of feeling like a failure just because she simply didn't  _care_. Tired of just wishing one morning she simply just wouldn't wake up.  
  
What kind of life had that been, anyway? It hadn't been a life at all.  
  
She couldn't remember the events leading up to her overdose, but she did remember the  _after_. The way her stomach felt like it had knotted itself up, the way her throat burned from being sick, the way that for days her head and eyes hurt just from the bright hospital lights. And even worse than that, had been the withdrawal she'd suffered through for those first few days when they kept her off drugs entirely so that her body would have some time to heal itself from the effects of the overdose. On the second day after waking up in the hospital, she'd spent hours shivering under the blankets, desperately trying to keep warm but failing entirely. Her gown had clung to her body with sweat and she'd been so uncomfortable and awful that she felt like she was going to die.  
  
Of course, she didn't, and on the third day the doctors gave her morphine to help curb some of the withdrawal symptoms. It wasn't as good as smack, not by  _far_ , but it had helped a little bit. At least it had been  _something_. She'd gulped the drugs down and hoped that it would be enough to hold her until she got out of the hospital and was able to go see her dealer.   
  
Her doctor told her that she was lucky to even be alive.  
  
"Luckily for you," the woman had said, her hair tied back into a tight ponytail, her lab coat too white, starched and pressed. "You collapsed in the elevator. The people who phoned you called 911 straight away; if the ambulance had gotten there only a minute or two later, you would have probably died. They managed to get you on a respirator and to the hospital so that we could pump your stomach."  
  
"Oh," Amanda said, trying to sound interested. Appreciative. "Well, it's good. That they were able to save me."  
  
The name on the doctor's hospital badge read:  _Dr. Lynn Denlon, Surgeon_. The name sounded vaguely familiar. If Amanda squinted, she thought that maybe she'd seen the good doctor's striking brown eyes before. She could recall, almost, a hazy night in college where --  
  
(unlikely)  
  
\-- she'd fucked a girl who looked almost as bright, and maybe a little more determined.  
  
"We're going to release you in a day or two," Dr. Denlon said, flipping through Amanda's medical file. "But of course, we recommend that you go for treatment to deal with your addiction. We can give you the names of a few clinics."  
  
"I'll be fine," Amanda told her, sitting up a bit more. "There's a clinic that I go to now anyway."  
  
Dr. Denlon arched an eyebrow, disbelieving. "Oh?"  
  
"One down on Archer Street. You know, right near the highway? It's a free clinic. The woman who runs it is, um, I think her name's Jill Tuck."  
  
"Right, well." Dr. Denlon wrote something down on her chart. "Maybe try a bit harder to get clean this time? You should know that it's easy to overdose -- especially with heroin. You  _can't_  be careful with it. And next time you overdose, you probably won't be so lucky as come out of it with hardly a scratch."  
  
Amanda swallowed, looked down at her hands. She was only half-listening and didn't at all care. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Sure."  
  
The doctor didn't look completely convinced, but she didn't say anything else. Just checked off a few more things on Amanda's chart, quickly reviewed her stats, and then told her that as long as she was feeling better, she'd be free to go the next afternoon. And then she had left, but not without giving Amanda one last hard look and telling her that if she wanted to live, she'd have to quit the drugs.  
  
Which Amanda didn't, on both counts. So she hadn't.  
  
But John -- that had been different. His game had opened her eyes in the way everything else  _hadn't_. And he'd done it to help her --  _her_ , specifically. She'd been the only survivor, which meant that she was the only one in the world who really understood John, who really understood what it felt like to be alive. Really alive, aware of everything at every moment and appreciating it for what it was -- wonderful and beautiful and something to be cherished above all else. He was the only one who really cared about her, she knew. He was the only one who had looked past the lowlife druggie she'd become and saw the girl inside who had true potential. The girl who could be something.  
  
No, not some _thing_. Some _one_.  
  
And she'd followed him blindly, of course she had. Everything he asked her to do -- cut her hair, slash her wrists, kidnap test subjects -- she did it all without question, without the slightest hesitation. She owed him everything. Her  _life_ , even. She would never be able to repay him for that. But she  _could_  give everything to him --  
  
(every cell in your body)   
  
\-- and that would have to be enough.  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
From the sworn testimony of Jill K. Tuck, taken before The State Investigatory Board of California in connection with the events of December 1, 2006 in Los Angeles, California (abridged version which follows is from  _Protégé: The Young Commission Report_ , Signet Books: New York, 2008):

> Q. Please tell us about Amanda Young.
> 
> A. There's not much to tell, really. Everyone thinks that she must have been some sort of -- that she was this deep and complex person or something like that. That there must have been some sort of reason why she would do what she did. We want to be able to logic it away, but the truth is, we can't. Amanda was a drug addict, a lost soul. She'd been in and out of the rehab center with little success; she'd be clean for two, maybe three days, then she'd run and get her fix. I didn't think that she really wanted to do it -- get clean, that is. It felt most times like she was just going through the motions.
> 
> Q. And at some point you must have noticed that Ms. Young stopped coming to your clinic?
> 
> A. I did, but I didn't think anything of it. Patients drop out all the time; they just decide that it's not even worth it for them to try or they just don't care. Like I said, Amanda never really seemed interested in getting sober. I wasn't all that surprised when she didn't come in any longer.
> 
> Q. Let's discuss your late husband for a moment. 
> 
> A. Why am I not surprised?
> 
> Q. We're not here to interrogate you, Ms. Tuck.
> 
> A. Well then, what  _are_  you here to do?
> 
> Q. Discuss the facts, get as much information as we can. Paint a fuller picture, if you will. There are still many unanswered questions about Amanda Young and you are one of the few people still alive who has intimate knowledge about her life.
> 
> A. I wouldn't call it  _intimate_. I was just a doctor at a rehab clinic. I saw dozens of patients all the time. I didn't mean anything to Amanda, she only came to me because . . . Well, I don't know  _why_  exactly, but I wasn't her therapist, that's for damn sure. If I could get her to say more than a handful of sentences to me every other visit I considered it a lucky break. 
> 
> Q. Which is why, you understand, we need to bring up the subject of your husband.
> 
> A. Of course; it always comes back around to him in the end, doesn't it?
> 
> Q. How did he know Ms. Young?
> 
> A. I don't know.
> 
> Q. No?
> 
> A. I don't know how he would have known about her, quite frankly, no. It's possible I may have mentioned her to him at some point, but it would have only been in passing and perhaps borne from frustration. I really did care about my patients, even if they didn't nessecarily care about me, and it was hard to deal with that sometimes. I mentioned many of my patients to John, but he'd never met any of them. So how he found her or why exactly he chose her I can't tell you. I don't . . . I don't know exactly what it is that you're looking for.
> 
> Q. That's fine, Ms. Tuck. Let's return to your relationship with Ms. Young for a moment: how would you describe her?
> 
> A. She was, um, quiet. Very quiet. Skittish. She didn't like it when people touched her -- I remember that specifically. That wasn't too surprising; there were track marks on both of arms.
> 
> Q. Anything else?
> 
> A. What do you mean?
> 
> Q. Any other marks on her, such as scars?
> 
> A. She did have some faint scars on both of her forearms. Smallish ones, sort of just -- well, like they were in a row. They were obviously self-inflicted.
> 
> Q. How did you know?
> 
> A. A lot of drug addicts will engage in self-harm when coming down from a high or experiencing withdrawal. There are some who even do it while actually high. But these particular marks didn't look like they had anything to do with Amanda's drug addiction, though.
> 
> Q. Please elaborate.
> 
> A. They were very faint and most likely very old. Given Amanda's fair complexion, they would have been much more noticeable if they'd been recent injuries. But you could barely see these and that was with good lighting, too. My guess is that she did that to herself long before I even met her.
> 
> Q. Did you say anything to her about them?
> 
> A. I told her that there were therapy groups for people who were self-injurers and suggested that she consider going, but I don't know if she went. Like I said, she didn't seem too concerned with getting off of heroin; I doubt that she would have been very enthusiastic or willing to go sort out any of her  _other_  problems.
> 
> Q. Do you have any other personal thoughts on Amanda Young that you'd like to share?
> 
> A. I don't know. I don't think so. Just . . . People are saying that they knew Amanda was dangerous, that something was wrong with her, that they're not surprised about what happened. But I don't agree. Amanda was just a plain, regular human being like the rest of us. Maybe she had some problems, but she wasn't this . . . cold-blooded killer. I think that she was in a frail state when my husband -- when _John_  -- found her and it turned her into something that she wasn't. Or rather, changed her into something she may not have ever become.
> 
> Q. Do you think that you may be biased in your sympathy for Ms. Young considering who your husband is?
> 
> A. John wasn't Amanda. And Amanda wasn't John. I think that's what everyone forgets . . .

 

\- -

  
  
  
From  _Rebirth and Apprenticeship: Documented Facts and Specific Conclusions Derived from the Case of Amanda Young_ , by Janet R. Winslow (Tulane University Press: 2008), p. 103:

> . . . in which case it would not be wrong to conclude that to Amanda Young, John Kramer stood as three very distinct and important roles, that of the mentor, father, and teacher. Being the one who initially conceived the duo's twisted life philosophy, he was the one who held the most power in the trio's dynamic. By guiding Young through the games, and helping her to hone her skills as an "apprentice" killer, and by keeping her actions in check, he thus ensued that the games would play out as he intended them to. In this way, he fulfilled his mentor role.
> 
> The role of teacher he played in a more subtle way: by placing Young in her first test -- and through her very success and survival -- he was able teach her the value of her own life. His subsequent explanation his methods and how he went about studying and selecting his victims allowed her to understand his way of thinking, which Amanda was very receptive to.
> 
> But for Amanda Young, Kramer 's largest role to play would be the one of a father. As speculated in Wilkens and Turner's paper  _The Adverse Psychological Effects on Abused Children in Relation to Serial Murderers_ , Young's history of abuse at the hands of her father as well as her developing Borderline Personality Disorder caused her to become severely emotionally attached to Kramer, idolizing him in the father role that had remained unfulfilled in her childhood.
> 
> In fact, it is not hard to imagine that Young herself was still quite emotionally childish herself. Self-injury often goes hand-in-hand with emotional immaturity; self-injurers who never seek help or recover often find themselves unable to deal with any sort of strong emotions at all, whether they be feelings of anxiety, angry, sadness or even happiness and boredom. Perhaps this would explain Young's unraveling towards the end of her life when she was faced with almost insurmountable hurdles of unbearable sadness, misplaced anger, and growing anxiety as a result of Kramer's slow but inevitable march towards death.
> 
> As the late Detective Allison Kerry recorded in her notes (the full of which are published in the now famous Young Commission Report), "the fact that the new Jigsaw traps appear to be deliberately rigged to provide a death sentence outcome suggest that John Kramer has either abandoned his previous philosophy and switched M.O.s or that whoever has been helping him has began to devolve as a killer. The latter is, perhaps, correct . . . "

 

\- -

  
  
  
From "The Ties That Bind Captive to Captor", Frank Ochberg,  _Los Angeles Times_ , April 8, 2005:

> . . . in every one of these cases, little by little, small acts of kindness by one of the captors evoke feelings deeper than relief. It would be akin to what an infant feels when he gets attention, relieving his thirst, hunger, wetness or fear of neglect -- a primitive gratitude for the gift of life, an emotion that eventually develops and differentiates into varieties of affection and love.
> 
> The attachment goes both ways. The captor often develops reciprocal feelings toward the hostage; they want to protect the hostage. But both captor and hostage have little trust in their rescuers and may come to hate them. They are the common enemy.

 

\- -

  
  
  
From the sworn testimony of Allison J. Kerry, taken before The State Investigatory Board of California in connection with the events of March 6th, 2005 in Los Angeles, California (abridged version which follows is from  _Protégé: The Young Commission Report_ , Signet Books: New York, 2008):

> Q. State your name please.
> 
> A. Allison Kerry. I'm a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department.
> 
> Q. And how long have you been with the LAPD?
> 
> A. Seven years next month. I transferred from San Francisco in 1998.
> 
> Q. I believe your record states this was because of some sort of incident at the SFPD? Something to do with a fellow officer?
> 
> A. My partner's wife thought we were having an affair; it wasn't true. He  _was_  having an affair, but it wasn't with me. But even after the dust had settled and the truth had been revealed things were still very . . . I think  _tense_  is the right word to use. There was certainly some, awkwardness between us. Between us and the whole department, actually. I thought it might be a distraction from work.
> 
> Q. But you did indeed have an affair with fellow LAPD Detective Eric Matthews, is that correct?
> 
> A. Yes.
> 
> Q. Didn't you see that as a distraction?
> 
> A. I -- well, I  _like_  working at the LAPD. I like the cases that I get and for the most part, I like the people that I work with. Yes, it was . . .  _trying_  at times. But I broke it off with Detective Matthews and we've maintained a very good working relationship. We both were --  _are_  -- mature adults. We don't let this sort of thing get in the way of our work. Besides that, by that point in time I had taken on the Jigsaw Killer case full time following the death of Detective Sing and subsequent dismissal of Detective Tapp. No one else had been on the case as long as I had; it would have been inappropriate and unprofessional to leave that sort of work undone.
> 
> Q. Thank you, Ms. Kerry. Now, you were at the Gibson Steel warehouse on March 6th when the LAPD S.W.A.T conducted a raid, is that correct?
> 
> A. Yes.
> 
> Q. And the raid was conducted under suspicion that John Kramer, the "Jigsaw Killer," was hiding out there.
> 
> A. Yes. When Detective Matthews and I visited the crime scene of Michael Marks, a police informant, we discovered that he was another one of Jigsaw's victims. During a sweep of the area in which the body was found, we discovered clues left by Jigsaw as to where his current location was.
> 
> Q. Clues?
> 
> A. A written instruction on the ceiling telling Detective Matthews to "look closer." Upon further investigation. Matthews discovered that the device that had killed Mr. Marks was made from material obtained from Gibson Steel, a factory on the coastal part of the city, right on the outskirts. We knew that building had been abandoned for almost a decade, so we came to the rather obvious conclusion that that was Jigsaw's hiding place -- or at least  _one of_  his hiding places. We thought it would be best to strike as quickly and effectively as possible, because we'd only get one shot at it.
> 
> A. And when you arrived on scene, what did you find?
> 
> Q, Jigsaw -- sorry, John Kramer. On the second floor. We lost four men trying to get up there; the stairs were wired. But he was near the back on the second floor. It wasn't clear to us at the time, but he was actually sitting inside the factory's cargo elevator, the one they used to transport materials from the workshops to the loading docks in the back. He'd disguised the area to throw us off, though. On the other end of the floor there was a timer counting down from two hours -- it counted down by the second, so it actually started at, um, approximately seven thousand. There was a desk with a row of computer monitors on it. But I've already detailed all that in my report --
> 
> A. Please, for our sake, give us an overview of what was taking place on the monitors.
> 
> Q. One of Kramer's "games." A handful of ex-cons were trapped in a house and were slowly being poisoned to death with the same gas that was used in the Tokyo subway attacks. They had to complete various tasks in order to obtain antidotes for the poison and save themselves. They had approximately two hours to live. Eventually Kramer revealed to us via Detective Matthews that all of the ex-cons had been . . . had been . . .
> 
> A. Ms. Kerry, do you need a moment?
> 
> Q. No, I'm fine. Sorry. Kramer revealed to us that all of the ex-cons had gone to prison for convictions that were made possible by Detective Matthews planting evidence. 
> 
> A. And those so-called "test subjects" that you and the other S.W.A.T. members were watching on the monitor. Did any of them survive?
> 
> Q. Two. Daniel Matthews, Detective Matthew's son. And of course, Amanda Young. Later we learned that Young had never actually been in danger; she had been injected with the antidote for the poison prior to being left in the house. Based on statements made by Kramer and given the Jigsaw methodology and M.O., it is safe to assume that this was Young's first "test;" like John Kramer, she allowed herself to be a voyeur to the the events unfolding by injecting herself into the"game" itself. This is not all that unlike serial killer who attempts to inject themselves into a police investigation.
> 
> A. Where is Daniel Matthews now?
> 
> Q. In the custody of his mother in upstate California.
> 
> A. And Detective Eric Matthews?
> 
> Q. He was . . . It was . . . I'm sorry, can I just --
> 
> _(a brief recess)_
> 
> Q. Once more Detective Kerry: Eric Matthews?
> 
> A. He is still a missing person's case, but the outlook is bleak as to whether or not he is still alive. He was coerced by Jigsaw into helping him escape via the elevator. We believed originally that we had found the location of the house where the ex-cons had been held, but we were misdirected by Jigsaw. As to where he took Eric Matthews . . .. We're still working to find his location. 
> 
> Q. And is the LAPD currently aware of the location of John Kramer and Amanda Young?
> 
> A. No. Young's address, the one on file from her arrest -- which is also the one she gave when she gave testimony to the State Board regarding her experience as a Jigsaw survivor -- appears to be abandoned. We spoke with the other tenants and the landlord, all of whom reported her apartment has been empty for months now. The address listed on Kramer's hospital records led us to Jill Tuck, Kramer's ex-wife, who has not spoken to him in several years and has no knowledge of his current whereabouts. Daniel Matthews is still being kept in a private hotel room and has not been available yet for interrogation. Even then, it's doubtful he'll be able to provide us with much -- if any -- useful information.
> 
> Q. So at this time the LAPD is not close to capturing either Kramer or Young?
> 
> A. Unfortunately, yes. That being said,  _luckily_  for us, Jigsaw likes to make his presence known to the police. He is highly egotistical and thus will not stay hidden for long; he needs to have his message be heard. It is only a matter of time before our next encounter . . .

 

\- -

  
  
  
When she'd pressed the blade against her wrists, digging in and making crooked cuts across her skin, the first thing she thought of was that first time she'd cut, at age thirteen, alone in her bathroom. But this was different now, even if the rush of excitement she felt was the same, even if the sight of blood made her heart race and the world slow down all at once. It had been so long since she'd cut herself -- it could have been the first time all over again, with the way her hand was shaking and the way she actually  _felt_  the blade as it dug into her skin. She hadn't felt that in so long; the feeling was welcome.  
  
The only difference was, this time she was being watched.  
  
John stood in the corner of the room, glancing out the window and then back over to her, his arms crossed, face blank. They watched as blood rolled along the curve of her wrist, dripped onto her jeans, the bed, the floor. The room was filled with a silence that was so heavy and overwhelming, that it just made Amanda cut  _more_ , cut  _harder_. It was only after she'd done four cuts on each wrist that she pulled back, suddenly self-aware. She looked up at John through blurry, half-closed eyes, already growing weak from the loss of blood.  
  
"Amanda," he said, coming over and crouching down in front of her. He put two fingers under her chin, lifted her face up so that she could meet his eyes. "Don't be afraid," he said. "This is just the first step. You must face death in order to be reborn."  
  
"Yes," she sighed, tired. She could barely keep her eyes open. She gripped his hand as he pulled her up onto her feet, wrapping an arm around her waist for support. Amanda sagged against him, head slumped forward, as they made their way towards the front door of her apartment.   
  
The game was simple:  
  
She would go to the hospital under the pretense of attempted suicide. She would be admitted, put in the emergency room and then moved to the observation ward in case she tried to kill herself again.From there, Obi would kidnap her and bring her to the house, and once that was done, the game would begin. A week earlier, they had done a trial run through the house, making sure that it was easy enough to navigate and that the game would stay on track and play out as planned.   
  
In the backseat of John's car, thin strips of clothes tied around her wrists as a makeshift bandage, she stared out the window and watched the city fly by, a blur of lights and tall buildings. It was an unusually gloomy day in Los Angeles, the low, dark clouds heavy with the threat of rain. It had only been a few years since she'd been in the hospital, for an overdose that had almost killed her. She hadn't known, then, that it would mark the beginning of the rest of her life, that it would be the moment leading to her rebirth. At the time she had just been looking to get out and get her next high. The fact that she'd overdosed had just been unlucky; she'd have to be more careful with dosage the next time.   
  
But now, now she  _did_  know.   
  
And things were different this time around. This time she wasn't just setting out to blindly destroy her life as much as possible. This time she cared about the  _after_ , what would happen once she was brought to the house, what would happen after the game had played itself out. And this time, she knew what she was doing. She had a purpose, a plan.  
  
The hospital loomed in the distance. Amanda looked up towards the front seat, met John's eyes in the rear-view mirror.  
  
He smiled. "Our game will be starting soon."  
  
"I know," Amanda said, offering a weak smile in return. The cloth strips around her wrist had slowed the bleeding from her wrists, but they hadn't stopped it entirely. She wasn't even sure that she was going to be able to get up and stumble out of the car once they pulled up in front of the emergency room entrance. "I'm ready."  
  
Three blocks away.  
  
Two blocks.  
  
One.  
  
The car rolled to a stop. 


	6. Chapter 6

Adam's death had been in the worst.  
  
In the hospital, faint from blood loss and the smell of antiseptic, she saw herself once more, a year younger and asleep at her desk, books on Darwin's theory of evolution, anatomy, and general engineering principles stacked high around her. She'd dozed off in the middle of a chapter of  _The Origin of Species_  and dreamt of a drowned Adam coming back to exact his revenge on her, dragging his chain behind him, the smell of a rotting corpse filling the room.   
  
She'd jolted awake, heart pounding, frantically looking around to make sure it really  _had_  just been a dream. And then, because she knew the dreams wouldn't stop and her guilt wouldn't lessen unless she actually  _did_  something about it, she left and returned to the bathroom. She had hoped that he was already dead, but no, when she held her hand in front of his face, it was obvious that he was still breathing.   
  
He was just barely alive, but that was the problem -- he  _was_  alive.  
  
It was a mercy killing, she told herself. She couldn't let him go free (there were rules, after all), but she couldn't stand the thought of him being locked away in this bathroom forever, left to die an agonizingly long death. So she'd wrapped the plastic around his head and he'd struggled -- of  _course_  he struggled, he didn't know she was trying to save him -- and smacked his face on the edge of the toilet seat, breaking his nose and knocking out a few teeth. At the sight of all the blood she'd nearly just given up, stomach churning like she was going to be sick, but in the end, she'd held on and after what felt like hours, he finally --  
  
(thankfully)  
  
\-- had died.  
  
But even now, more than a year later, she thought of him. She couldn't get the smell and sight of death out of her mind. It was there, always, lurking in the background. Murderer, it said. And she knew that she wasn't a murderer, knew that she'd only tried to do what was best, because he shouldn't have had to suffer any longer than the others, and it wasn't her fault that he had failed his game. She had broken the rules herself just by killing him, but she knew that she had been right in doing so. Adam  _had_  to die. And eventually he would have.   
  
She hadn't done anything wrong; it was Adam who had brought death upon himself. She had only interfered in the most minor sense.  
  
(those who don't appreciate life do not deserve life)  
  
Yes, she thought, feeling herself slipping out of consciousness. There was no reason to feel guilty. No reason at all.  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
From  _Natural Born Killer: the True Story of Amanda Young_  p. 197:

> The body of former LAPD Detective Eric Matthews was found in the early spring of 2008, almost three years after the late cop had gone missing. Of course at this point in time Matthews had already been considered dead, simply just another one of Jigsaw's victims, but the discovery of his body was incredibly important due to the amount of evidence it brought forth. The discovery of the death house game that was recounted by Detective Alison Kerry and Lieutenant Rigg and detailed extensively in the Young Commission Report as well as their personal reports and the critically acclaimed biography  _Jigsaw: Piecing Together the Life and Times of America's Most Notorious Serial Killer_  (John Thompson, 2009) occurred after a great deal of research and detective work was done looking into the history John Kramer. Much like the infamous Gideon building, the house was eventually discovered with help from John Kramer's ex-wife, Jill Tuck.
> 
> The death house not only provided the bodies for those persons seen playing out a game by Detectives Kerry and Matthews and Lieutenant Rigg, but also revealed the location of three more Jigsaw victims who were later discovered to be Dr. Lawerence Gordon, Zep Hindle, and Adam Stanheight, all of whom had been reported missing in the spring of 2004. They were all found in a dilapidated bathroom along with the body of Xavier Chavez, a participate in the death house game. Also found in the corridors that weaved between the house and the bathroom was the body of Detective Eric Matthews.
> 
> Upon examination, it was discovered that Matthews had died to due multiple stab wounds, which pierced through vital organs and caused him to bleed out quite rapidly. The knife that was found among Amanda Young's possessions was later identified as the weapon that was used to kill Matthews. This new bit of evidence is quite revealing about Amanda's character; we can perhaps better speculate as to why Amanda went from an willing, blindly obedient apprentice to a cold-blooded killer. A tape recovered from the bathroom also sheds some light on Amanda's feelings on Matthews.
> 
> As is well-documented, during the period of time when Matthews was a celebrated police officer, many of the convictions that he was able to retain were due to him planting evidence. Young was, unfortunately, one of Matthews victims and was therefore falsely accused of selling heroin. It is because of this that Young would forever harbor a grudge against Matthews and indeed that is most likely why Matthews was selected for one of Jigsaw's macabre games. 
> 
> The tape discovered in the bathroom illustrated clearly both Amanda's hatred for Matthews and her blind devotion towards her mentor, John Kramer. The disgust in her voice while speaking to Matthews contrasts perfectly with the soft, admirable tone she uses when she speaks of John as well as her boastfulness at being selected as his protégé and gives chilling insight into how simply unstable Amanda was even at this point in her life, both mentally and emotionally. It is quite clear indeed that Amanda enjoyed the fact that Matthews was unsuccessful at winning his game and was pleased to be able to lock him up just as he had done to her years before.
> 
> But the medical examiner's report also shows that Matthews suffered severe trauma to his left foot, which, when matched with blood sample taken at the bathroom crime scene, prove that Matthews was able to somehow escape his bonds and break free. Ultimately this would have led to a confrontation between Amanda and Matthews and whatever advantages Matthews may have had based on sheer strength and size alone, the force and power behind Amanda's rage would have been almost overwhelming.
> 
> The fact that Matthews was stabbed forty-eight times suggests extreme rage and emotional and mental disturbance. It was the third stab, somewhat near to the center of his heart, that actually dealt Matthews his death blow. The murder was simply an example of overkill; Amanda wanted nothing more to completely destroy Matthews, the perceived enemy, and she accomplished just that.
> 
> Now, as to what may have specifically caused their scuffle in the hallway, that part is unclear. We know Matthews dragged himself along for quite a long way, until he eventually came upon Amanda. Hair and blood samples found in the tunnel show that Matthews at least injured Amanda somewhat. But we also know Amanda was more than devoted to John Kramer and killing Matthews would not have been something John would have abided by. It is most likely that Amanda planned to simply leave Matthews alone and for dead, but Matthews may have retaliated in some way that caused a strong enough reaction in her so that she would break John's rules of the game.
> 
> Given that Amanda suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder, even the slightest of indications that she was nothing and not important to John would have set her off. Perhaps this is exactly what Matthews did . . .

 

\- -

  
  
  
It wasn't that she liked killing people.  
  
Well, no, that was a lie; she  _did_  like it. She hadn't, before, but she'd developed a taste for it, over time. And why shouldn't she have? Even now, when she closed her eyes, she could see the man --  
  
(donnie, donnie greco, he has a name)  
  
\-- lying on the cold cement ground. She could still feel the scalpel, light and deadly, in her hand, could hear the incessant timer clicking down the seconds to her death. The dull  _thunk_  of metal cutting through skin, the smell of the blood -- and God, there'd been so  _much_  blood -- the feeling of it coating her hands up to her wrists, warm and thick. Slippery. That had been the first time; the moment of her rebirth was marked with the stain of death.  
  
It was fitting then, she thought, that the thing that interested her most of all was not the hunt nor the teaching nor the lesson. Her enjoyment came from the aspect of death and death alone. The kill. The finality of it was what she found most pleasing. Death brought no surprise endings, no sudden twists, only swift conclusion. So what if there were loose ends that still required tying up? So what if there had been so many things left undone, left unsaid? That didn't matter to her. It wasn't her role to do those things. She was simply an apprentice following in the footsteps of a master.  
  
Apprentice. She liked that. She said the word out loud, pleased at how easily it rolled off her tongue.  
  
It was exactly who she was. A killer too, perhaps, but an apprentice first and foremost. She had succeeded where others had failed, had excelled where others could only lag behind. She was special, of course she was. If she wasn't, then John wouldn't have picked her. But  _he_  had sought out  _her_. He knew that she wasn't like the others. He saw the purpose of her life, the things she was meant to do.  
  
But there was one thing --   
  
(don't)  
  
\-- and that was that she didn't see the point in testing people. It just seemed so pointless. She and John both knew that inevitably they would fail. Even if they managed to survive, they would simply slip into their life  _before_ , never looking forward, never truly believing that they needed to change. Maybe they  _would_  change, fix that part of their life that was bad. But it wouldn't be enough. She knew that now; it wasn't enough just to change one part of yourself and expect that everything would be okay from here on out.  
  
No one ever learned. No one ever changed. It was why even now she couldn't rid herself of the little metal box hidden under the blankets at the foot of her bed. She couldn't throw out the razors, the lighters, the alcohol, and bandages, no matter how badly she desired to or how much she tried to talk herself into doing it. Because she wasn't fixed. She  _hadn't_  been reborn. Sure, the track marks on her arms had nearly faded completely, and yes, she'd given up the drugs completely, on the very first day she was tested. But that was all. She was still the same person.  _Nothing_  had changed. And it wouldn't ever.  
  
And hadn't Eric Matthews really just proved her point? So fucking concerned with finding his son that he couldn't see the plain truth right in front of him: that he was the reason he had lost Daniel in the first place. Bashed his foot into pieces just to get out, but what he didn't get was the fucking  _point_.   
  
(you're nothing)  
  
She still had the bruises and cuts on her face to prove to herself that she was absolutely justified in doing what he did. He'd taken her life from her, so she'd just returned the fucking favor. That's exactly what she told herself. John always said that those who didn't appreciate life didn't deserve life; forget his  _own_  life, Eric Matthews had never appreciated anyone  _else's_  life. That had been apparent from the first time she'd met him, when he'd smashed a flashlight into her jaw. When he told the judge she had resisted arrest. When he pointed out that he'd found heroin on her.  
  
The heroin he  _planted_. To  _frame_  her. And for what? So he could get one more award for being some sort of fucking fearless cop? She did what she had to do --  
  
John didn't understand.  
  
(couldn't understand, wouldn't want to even if he could)  
  
But it didn't matter. Not any more. Whatever her failings were, she'd been given a new purpose in life. New direction, new focus. John would determine who was guilty, their victim's judge and jury. She would be the executioner. It was so easy, watching them die; she didn't feel a thing. They always went out with so much anger, never sadness, never regret. Were they angry at her, at the games? Or were they simply angry with themselves that they'd failed? That by the time they'd seen the error of their ways it was already too late?  
  
Their deaths were the results of their own actions. They had put themselves in these situations, they had made  _themselves_  un-savable.She was only there to show them where they had gone wrong. John may have liked to pretend that they would redeem themselves, that in the end, they would have what it took to survive. That they would be willing to change.  
  
Rebirth, John had called it. "You must meet death in order to be reborn."  
  
He'd lied. Of course he'd fucking  _lied_. No one changed. No one was reborn. You couldn't just . . .  _leave_  yourself behind like that. It wasn't that fucking simple. You could try and change and be someone new but it didn't work. You were still just the same person you'd always been. Just someone pathetic and worthless and simply not deserving enough of life. So why, she felt, should she even lie and tell these people that they had a chance? Pretend like they could turn their lives around and become someone new -- someone  _better_.   
  
She wasn't like John. She wasn't a hypocrite.  
  
(those who don't appreciate life do not deserve life)  
  
In time, he would come to see that she was right. And even if he didn't? Well. It didn't matter.  
  
When she'd jabbed Daniel Matthews in the neck with a syringe, it had been one of the least satisfying moments of her life. It wasn't as if she wanted him to die, because she didn't, but she didn't like the idea of saving people. Not like this, anyway. It was too simple, too neat. It was never really his game, but she didn't  _care_ ; she had found herself annoyed at the fact that he hadn't really worked for his freedom at all. It was just given to him, just like that. The only thing he'd done was slash Xavier's throat and that --  
  
(never felt better)  
  
\-- had been easy. It was natural, instinctive. Lashing out at whatever presented the greatest threat. It wasn't like winning a game, wasn't like being a survivor. This was just  _nothing_ , plain in simple. It meant nothing and she felt nothing, aside from a small rush of relief of knowing that the game was already half over. All that was left was to sit and wait for John to do his part, for Eric Matthews to come stumbling into the bathroom, blood-splattered and enraged, frantically looking to find his son.  
  
And she'd known, of course, that Eric would lose.   
  
Or maybe, she'd just  _hoped_  he would lose. Just saying his name left a bad taste in her mouth. The very thought of him would almost send her into a blind rage; all she could think about was the sharp pain in her jaw from when she was struck with his flashlight, the shame and fear and confusion she'd felt at being arrested and locked up. That smug grin on his face when her sentence was read and the way he'd just been such a perfect fucking model of a hero. A celebrated cop. It was all fucking lies and no one even  _cared_.  
  
She'd been more than pleased when John had selected Eric for the game -- told herself, even, that it was all because of her. It wasn't, of course, but maybe it was. She had told John all about Eric  _fucking_ Matthews and her arrest and why she'd gone to prison. She had tried to be calm while she explained everything to John, but by the end she was out of her mind, furious, digging her nails into her palms so hard that she hoped she drew blood.  
  
Eric Matthews deserved everything that had happened to him.  
  
When she'd left him in the bathroom, she hadn't expected him to survive. She hadn't expected him to bash his foot in and come crawling out after her, only moments later. Hadn't expected him to still be so fucking  _furious_ , so fucking  _blind_  to his own failures. Like it was her fault that he hadn't had a strong enough will, that he hadn't been able to follow the goddamn rules and just  _pay fucking attention_.  
  
He'd struck her with the pipe and she'd crumpled to the ground, stunned.  
  
And they'd fought. She'd struggled against him as he'd grabbed her, slamming her face against the wall again and again, demanding to know where his son was. It had hurt like  _hell_ , dazed her and made her see stars, but she hadn't given in and she hadn't given up. She'd spat blood in his face and kicked him down and scrambled away while he howled in pain, sounding like a wounded animal. It was horrifying and glorious all at once and her heart was beating so hard that she thought it was going to break her ribs and just burst from her chest. And she would have left him there, she  _would have_ , but then he had to go and fucking  _say it_  --  
  
(you're not jigsaw)  
  
\-- and she just couldn't stop herself --  
  
(you're  _nothing_ )  
  
\-- from falling to her knees, struggling against herself not to fucking  _cry_ , because she wasn't that pathetic, she wasn't  _that_  girl any longer. She was better than that. Stronger. And because she couldn't cry, she also couldn't just walk away, so instead she pushed herself back up onto her feet and turned around. At some point her breathing had become ragged and uneven and there was that pain again, dancing along her chest and shoulders, too strong to push down or ignore any longer.  
  
She kicked him, punched him. Grabbed the knife off of the floor beside him and stabbed him. Again and again and again, until he wasn't struggling or shouting. Until he was still and lifeless, eyes staring up with wide, blank wonder at her. There was blood all over her, on her shirt and jacket and pants. On her face; she wiped at it with the back of her sleeve, pictured a streak of red along her face.   
  
She'd taken his gun and kept his knife as well. Trophies, sort of. A reminder of what she had become.  
  
(a monster)  
  
(a murderer)  
  
(irredeemable)  
  
(reborn)  
  
In the van, John was covered with blood.  
  
She rushed over when she saw him there, all thoughts of what she'd just done gone from her mind. He was slumped over in his seat, face bloody and swollen. He smiled up at her when she pulled open the passenger side door and wrapped her arms around him to keep him from falling out of the car.   
  
"John," she'd murmured into his shoulder, panicked. "John, are you all right?"  
  
"I'm fine," he told her, as she pushed him back up into a sitting position, pulling up on the lever to get the back of the chair to lean back at a gentler angle. "How was our friend Eric Matthews? No trouble then?  
  
"Gave me the nicest of greetings, of course," Amanda told him, internally breathing a sigh of relief when she realized that John probably though that the blood on her had come from him, when she'd hugged him tightly, helping him back up into the car. He wouldn't know what he'd done; she felt a flush of shame at that. "But he's locked in there, just like you wanted."  
  
John coughed, smiled up through bloody teeth. "Good."  
  
She left him and climbed into the driver's seat, digging around into her jean pockets for the keys, starting up the car. She glanced over at John, worried, as she put the car into drive and pulled away from the house, turning back onto the dirt street that led out towards the highway. She sighed, slumping down in her seat, exhausted. She just wanted to be back home, curled up on her small, narrow bed with the curtains closed. Everything had just turned into such a fucking mess and she was still shaken up about what had happened.  
  
(eric in the hallway, oh, and xavier with his knife)  
  
"What happened?" she asked John, finally, when the silence had become too heavy to bear.  
  
John didn't open his eyes, his breathing low and shallow. "It seems that Eric Matthews was not able to win his game. Even with the help of Detectives Kerry and Rigg, he was still unable to see past the small details and see the bigger picture. He refused to listen. And that was his downfall. He saw his safe world crumbling down around him and instead of doing all he could to fix it, he just helped tear it down that much faster."  
  
Amanda said, "We knew that would happen. I mean, we thought it would."  
  
"It's always disappointing though, when a subject fails."  
  
"Yeah." Amanda took the entrance ramp onto the highway. "Yeah, you're right."  
  
John reached for her, covering her hand with his. "But I'm happy that at least one person learned something," he said, in a soft, light voice. "You are the most important thing in the world, Amanda. You are the one who will carry on my legacy, the one who will continue my work once I'm gone."  
  
The shame from knowing that she'd betrayed John's wishes and lost control of herself and her emotions and killed Eric Matthews met and mixed uneasily with the pride she felt at John's words. It was then that she knew that John could never, ever know about what she had done. It would break him -- it would break  _them_  -- and would ruin everything. She knew that Matthews had gotten what he'd deserved and she didn't regret it in the least, but in her heart she knew that John would be so goddamn  _disappointed_  in her, if he ever found out the truth.  
  
And she didn't want to think about what would happen then.  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
From  _Jigsaw_ , p. 324:

> We will never really know exactly was transpired between the hours of 9-11 PM on December 1st, during which Lynn and Jeff Denlon were forced to play out what would be the final Jigsaw game. Kramer, at this point in time, was on his death bed and was being tended to by Young, who no doubt was both waiting for and dreading his impending demise. From some of Kramer's notes, along with tapes that were recovered from the crime scenes at the Gideon building, we know that Kramer's final game was two-fold: Jeff Denlon would be forced to confront various persons which he had held grudges against due to the death of his son, Dylan, some years prior. His wife, Lynn, was given the task of keeping Kramer alive, which is evidenced by the crude brain surgery that was performed on Kramer to relieve the pressure due to his brain swelling. 
> 
> Young's mental state was clearly becoming void of all stability at this point, though the reasons for why that is, are mostly unclear. Obviously the thought of losing her mentor and newly attained father figure must have been devastating to her, but certainly this could not have been the only cause of her anguish, as Kramer's illness was already in the advanced stages when they first met. As was mentioned earlier in this book, we know that Young committed self-injury in the remaining hours of her life, cutting herself on the inside of her thigh with a knife and cutting open her palm by squeezing a leather cutter. From surveillance footage inside the building, we know she was severely agitated for most of the evening; constantly going back and forth between the computer screens (through which she watched Jeff Denlon play his game), John's sick room, and her own bed (where her "cutting kit" was apparently kept hidden).
> 
> Also found among Kramer's notes were vague indications of a  _third_  game, though it's still unclear as to what that game was about. It has been speculated that it once again involved his own apprentice, Young; the present ongoing theory is that Kramer had discovered Young was building not traps to provide a chance at life, but rather, ones that were designed simply for execution. These theories are, of course, unsubstantiated and will most likely always remain so, as with many aspects of Amanda Young's life.
> 
> But we do know that Young lashed out at Lynn Denlon, for whatever reason. Blood from an injury on Young's upper arm was found on Denlon's shirt. Fibers and hairs were found on each of the women's shirts, which further points to the fact that at some point they must have struggled. Marks were visible on Denlon's neck from a brief period of strangulation; these marks were consistent with Young's grip. And then, of course, there is the fact that Young shot Denlon, which severely injured her and set off a chain of events that would ultimately lead to the deaths of everyone involved.
> 
> To further complicate the mystery of the events of that evening, was an envelope found at the scene of the crime with Amanda Young's name on it . . .

 

\- -

  
  
  
From  _Natural Born Killer: the True Story of Amanda Young_  p. 248:

> What must have been going through Amanda Young's mind on that fateful night when Lynn and Jeff Denlon were kidnapped and placed into a deadly game that would test the very limits of their wills? It was a game that would bring an abrupt conclusion to the infamous Jigsaw Killer legacy and would, even after the dust had settled, continue to baffle both investigators and reporters alike. There is so much involving that night that can only be speculated upon, because the only game's participants are aware of what transpired. And they, of course, are dead.

 

\- -

  
  
  
She fucking  _hated_  Lynn Denlon.  
  
She'd never hated anyone else so fiercely in her life, but she hated Lynn with every fiber of her being. She hated the way Lynn looked at her -- pity and resentment and smugness, but never  _fear_  -- and she hated the way she spoke, so fucking condescending and matter of fact. As if it was really all just some big fucking joke. Amanda hated her wedding ring, glinting in the light, hated the way her hair just looked so fucking  _perfect_ , hated the way she looked no worse for wear even splattered with John's blood. But most of all, Amanda hated the way Lynn made her feel; sick and weak and absolutely powerless.   
  
Desperate. Lonely. Unwanted.  
  
She stared at the box on her bed, half-hidden underneath her comforter and willed herself not to do it. Not to open it and lay out each and every single object inside. But she did -- of fucking  _course_  she did, she couldn't stop herself anymore than she could stop John from slipping away from her -- rolling out the bit of red cloth she kept in there, drawing out each object with absolute determination.  
  
Razor blade. Lighter. Scalpel. Cloth. Bandages. Alcohol.  
  
She gripped the bottle of alcohol like it was a lifeline, like it was the very last thing keeping her tethered to the earth. And maybe it was. She'd tried, tried so very fucking  _hard_  not to cut, but it had been impossible. With each new game and with every new day that meant one less day, that many fewer hours with John, she'd fought a losing battle against herself. Cutting had always been the one constant in her life and no mater how hard she'd tried to leave it belong, shed this habit just as easily as she had the drugs and her old life, she hadn't been successful.  
  
The knife --  
  
(thank god)  
  
\-- was in her hand. Breathe in, breathe out. It felt like the fucking walls were closing in on her. All she could think about was goddamn  _Lynn Denlon_ , that selfish, smug bitch. All she could think about was John's eyes on her, watching her move about the room and oh,  _fuck_ , his  _hand_  on her arm, telling her --  
  
(don't mean  _anything_ )  
  
\-- that he loved her --  
  
( _worthless_ )  
  
\-- and Lynn had just fucking  _looked_  at her with this sad, expectant expression on her face.  
  
First there was the pain and then the blood and then came that familiar, welcome rush of relief. In these few precious moments when she was cutting, nothing else mattered. She felt herself being tugged back into reality, felt the haze of rejection, fear, sadness, and anger fade from her mind, replaced the sting of the blade cutting into her skin. She felt blood roll down along the inside of her thigh, knew it was dripping onto her bed and staining the sheets, but she didn't care.  
  
When she stood, finished, once more anxious and pacing the room, the cut stung every time her pants brushed against it. It didn't hurt that much, but instead it served as a welcome reminder that she was --  
  
(not upset)  
  
(just fine)  
  
\-- able to keep her emotions in check. She couldn't let Lynn win -- she fucking  _couldn't_.   
  
The letter in the desk sat untouched. She couldn't bring herself to read it -- not now and probably not ever. She couldn't bear to think about what might be in it. Maybe it was a goodbye or instructions for a new game or something else entirely, but she didn't want to know. To her, reading it would mean that things were really over. That nothing would ever be the same. She wanted to carry on John's legacy, but she didn't want him to  _die_  either. She was both fighting and expecting John's death.  
  
Tonight, she knew. This was where it ended.  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
It felt as though her whole life had been narrowed down to this one moment in time, as she jostled the gun between Lynn and John, wondering when everything had just fallen apart, when everything had gone wrong. She had tried so hard, so fucking  _hard_  to be perfect. To give everything to John. To make him proud. And now everything was just slipping from her, to a place just beyond her grasp.  
  
And it wasn't fair. It  _wasn't_.   
  
Amanda had expected things to be better. She had expected to be reborn. But it had all been a lie. Just one big ugly  _lie_  and she hated him for saying it, but she hated herself even more, for believing him. Of course he didn't care about her. She hadn't been special. She'd just been another pawn in one of his stupid little games, someone to keep around while they were useful and to discard when they were not. She was nothing. And she would  _never_  be Jigsaw.  
  
She thought of Detective Kerry's face, right before she'd been ripped in two. Thought of the shocked expression on her face, disbelieving, when Amanda stepped out of the shadows, cloaked in the red and black theatre cape that John had given her. Amanda had smiled at her, smug and triumphant. She had never felt so fucking high in life. But, now, her whole world had been turned upside down and the scenario and roles had been reversed; now she felt like she was Kerry and John was her, grinning while she watched in stunned silence.  
  
And Lynn was the trap, destroying her utterly and completely.  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
This wasn't how it was supposed to end.  
  
As she gripped her neck blindly, feeling her fingers and hands become coated with blood, all she could think about was how this wasn't how things were supposed to go. She had imagined years of carrying on John's work, achieving all of the things that he hadn't, for once making something grand out of her miserable life. She had pictured herself a decade from now, in perfect form, watching in the shadows, cloaked in John's old red and black theatrical robe. She saw herself as she had been at Kerry's death, a sort of reaper of souls of sorts, stepping out into the light just before they crossed over into the dark. Both of them knowing that they had failed.  
  
Things were supposed to different. Her life was meant for grander things than this. Wasn't that why John had picked her? He'd known that she was special. That she had potential. That she was better than everyone who would ever come before or after. She could feel his hand on her shoulder, as he handed her a manila envelope with Adam's name on it, instructing her to go. She could feel his arm wrapped around her waist, holding her up, as blood dripped from the cuts on her wrist, ran in rivers down her arms.  
  
"We'll leave that life behind," he'd said.  
  
She coughed, sputtered, felt blood in her mouth more than tasted it. The edges of her world were beginning to grow dim and faded, like the edges of a photograph that had aged over time. She pressed her hands to her throat and thought about that first night her father had locked her under the basement stairs. The overwhelming fear, horrible feeling of uncertainty that came with not knowing when or how things would end and what they would be like in the  _after_. She thought about being swallowed whole by the darkness and wanted to cry and scream and wrestle free from whatever it was that was pulling her to the ground.  
  
(can't even)  
  
(try)  
  
But she couldn't. She could only sit and stare helplessly, blood leaking between her fingers, dripping down her chest and back, soaking into her shirt. Could only listen as John described with cold, clinical precision exactly where everything had gone wrong. Adam. Eric Matthews, Kerry, Troy. Her mother, her father. An endless string of one night stands and failed emotional connections.   
  
Herself.  
  
(so much blood, so fucking much)  
  
(there is no turning back, do you understand?)  
  
And somehow, she realized, in that moment, that she had just fallen into the most significant trap of all: her inescapable death. She struggled against herself, feeling her resolve and will grow weaker with every passing second. Blindly, she thought, if she could only just reach John, then maybe things would be all right. He would understand, of course. Would fix her and tell her that this was only another step in the quest for rebirth. John would know what to say, what to do. Everything would be all right.  
  
(do not be afraid, your life has only just begun)  
  
(he helped me)  
  
She reached out to him. Desperate. Wanting. Needing. He was so, so far away. Miles and miles.  
  
(the cure for death itself)  
  
John, she tried to say, and couldn't. Her lips had become foreign things that she couldn't move on her own. It felt as if she was falling asleep, even with blood running down her stomach, warm and wet. A warning sign, brilliant and bright. Danger, danger, danger, it flashed at her. Everything was so wrong. Everything was wrong and this wasn't what she had planned, not what she had dreamed about. There was still so much left to do.  
  
(think about tomorrow)  
  
Yes, tomorrow, when she'd wake up and realize this was all a bad dream. She would wash her face in the sink and stare up at herself with wide, dark brown eyes and tell herself that today was it. Today was the day of her rebirth. Today things would change and everything would be set right. Today she would be fulfilled and know that that fulfillment came not from death, but from life.   
  
Tomorrow, she would sit by John's bed and read the newspaper out loud. Tomorrow she would sit at her desk and draw up sketches and plans for the next game, the next series of tests, and would not even think about all of the mistakes she had made in the past. She would be a new person, with a new life, and a new purpose. Tomorrow she would not be Amanda Young. Tomorrow she would be Jigsaw. Leader, teacher. Healer.  
  
Tomorrow, she would gain --  
  
(the answer is -- )  
  
\-- immortality.  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  


  
  
  


\- -

  
  
  
From  _Jigsaw_ , p.371:

> John Kramer and his protégé, Amanda Young, were found dead by police on the eve of December 1st, 2006, in a warehouse that had been bought by Kramer prior to his divorce from Ms. Jill Tuck. Ms. Tuck, acting as a witness, was able to provide information that led police to what would be Kramer's final whereabouts. The crime scene they witnessed upon arrival was horrific: aside from Young and Kramer, there were several other bodies found scattered throughout the warehouse, all of whom had suffered brutal, horrific deaths. Among those deceased were Ms. Danica Scott (hypothermia and shock), Mr. Frank Halden (fatal gunshot wound to upper temple), Mr. Timothy Young (broken neck), and Mr. and Mrs. Jeff and Lynn Denlon (both suffered fatal gunshot wounds). Jeff Denlon was a police casualty, though arguably could be listed among Jigsaw's victims.
> 
> Kramer himself died due to hemorrhaging from a severed artery in his neck, a wound which it was later discovered was caused by a large, handheld miter saw. Young suffered a gun shot wound to the neck, which damaged her carotid artery, causing her to bleed out within minutes. Paramedics who arrived at the scene were unable to revive either Young or Kramer.
> 
> Much information has been released over these past few years concerning John "Jigsaw" Kramer and his apprentice Amanda Young, but unfortunately a good deal of this tragedy has been sensationalized for the sake of good story telling. As of fall, 2008, plans for a movie have been announced. Hopefully this movie will not suffer the same pitfalls that come hand-in-hand with most "based on a true story" movies: misinformation. It is important to remember that Kramer and Young, however fantastical their lives as serial killers may seem, were, in the end, ordinary human beings. The lesson that comes from knowing this is frightening: at any place, in any given time, there may be another ordinary, regular person who is just a moment away from turning into the next Jigsaw.
> 
> As to what went on in the minds of Young and Kramer within the final hours leading up to their death, one can only guess. Perhaps they had already anticipated their deaths, having put themselves into one of their own invariably inescapable and elaborate traps. Perhaps they had already anticipated the possibility of being discovered by police after their deaths, and therefore were not afraid to sacrifice themselves for what they believed was the greater good.
> 
> And thus, we are reminded of the words of Amanda Young, recorded on a tape meant for Detective Eric Matthews, which was only recently discovered in the past year: "What is the cure for cancer, Eric? The cure for death itself? The answer is immortality. By creating a legacy, by living a life worth remembering, you become immortal . . . "

 

\- -

  
  
  
From  _Rebirth and Apprenticeship: Documented Facts and Specific Conclusions Derived from the Case of Amanda Young_ , p. 224:

> It is, without a doubt, worth mentioning that Amanda Young's life was not all that different from a life that is lived out by many men and women around the world today. Everywhere we look we can see child who have suffered from abuse, people who are falsely accused and imprisoned, and dozens upon dozens of people of all ages and genders struggling with various forms of mental illness. Young's story is unique from theirs only because she became something most of them will never even conceive of themselves as: a serial killer.
> 
> However, it is not impossible to imagine how any one of us, no matter how well-adjusted or how happy we may think we are, could become the next Amanda Young. All it would take is one life changing moment . . .

 

\- -

  
  
  
From the conclusion of The State Investigatory Board of California, in connection with the murderers perpetrated by the "Jigsaw Killer" in Los Angeles, California:

> . . . and so we must conclude that the apprentice of and subsequent "Jigsaw Killer," Amanda Young, was a very emotionally and mentally disturbed woman, who, due to failures of the state and local officials, suffered undue tragedies in her life, and subsequently suffered a serious mental break that erupted into extreme and unprovoked violence. However, we can now breathe a sigh of relief, reassured that the so-called Jigsaw legacy has been laid to rest . . .

 

\- -

  
  
  
From  _Playing Games_ :

> . . . really, if there is anything we can learn from all this, it is that we all possess the potential within us to become an Amanda Young . . .

 

\- -

  
  
  
Excerpt from a letter dated July 2, 2002, from Amanda Young, Valley State Prison for Women, Chowchilla, California, to Jennifer Rowery, San Francisco, California:

> . . . tells me that my sentence will be up in two weeks. I'm looking forward to being back on the outside again. Being free. You wouldn't know the things you lose when you're locked away. Nothing will be easy once I'm out of here, but I will be glad to be rid of this place. Waiting these past few months for news about my release has become almost unbearable; I simply cannot wait for my life outside of prison to begin. At least I won't have to worry about having a parole officer, which is the one silver lining. Before I forget, I want to thank you for offering me a place to stay until I get back on my feet, but I must decline your invitation. As of this point in time, I am looking to just forget everything that has happened to me and am going to attempt to completely re-start my life, which means leaving the past -- and everything associated with it -- behind. 
> 
> I want to thank you again for writing to me over these past seven years or so. Yours is the only communication I have ever received here in prison, aside from monthly talks with my prick of a state-appointed defense attorney. Please give my regards to Stephen. Perhaps, once I'm out, I will find time to stop by for a visit. It would be nice to finally meet my one and only niece; from your descriptions, she sounds like a very lovely (and lucky) little girl. 
> 
> Hope you're doing well.
> 
> All my love,
> 
> Mandy


End file.
